February 25, 2008
Gathered over syrupy breakfast plates or around folding tables, wearing jogging suits or blue jeans, Democrats around Horry County began choosing some of the delegates who may cast the deciding votes that officially end the party's hotly contested presidential nomination.
Saturday morning marked the precinct reorganization meetings for Democrats across the state, the first step in choosing South Carolina's 45 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention that begins Aug. 25 and ends three days later with a nominee. Although insiders and power brokers make up the superdelegates that may decide this year's close race between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the pledged delegates that represent the state's primary vote are chosen from the party rank-and-file.
At Akel's Family Restaurant on Kings Highway in Myrtle Beach, a dozen members of three Pine Lakes and Ocean Boulevard-area precincts gathered Saturday morning. While long-standing local party members debated intracacies of convention procedure at one precinct's table, Democrats from another precinct compared Clinton and Obama and those from the third precinct discussed the importance of this year's election.
"I can tell you exactly what pulled me in here," said Joe Taylor, an investment adviser who said he always votes but has never participated in party politics. "It's George Bush. He's probably the best recruiting tool for Democrats that's ever existed."
In counties such as Horry, where Democrats seem few and far between, one person often wears several hats.
The Democratic Party's instructions call for members to first elect precinct officers, then choose the convention delegates.
On Saturday in Horry County, those roles were often filled by the same people.
Although several other precinct tables around him were full, the Rev. Timothy McCray sat by himself at the folding table designated for the Coastal Lanes 2 precinct in Myrtle Beach.
McCray, 40, said he was a party activist when he lived in New York, but moved back home to Myrtle Beach four years ago and is just now getting involved in politics again - helping in City Councilman Mike Chestnut's re-election campaign and organizing for Barack Obama.
Whether as a pledged delegate or just an observer, McCray said he plans to attend the convention.
From a fire station in Myrtle Beach or a church in Conway to the big-time in Denver is a long road.
Hundreds of delegates chosen from each precinct Saturday will go on to the county Democratic convention March 10.
From among themselves, they will then choose 70 delegates to the state convention on May 3, joining delegates from every county in the state.
There, South Carolina's 46 delegates to the national convention will finally be chosen, and 45 of those will sign a pledge to support a specific candidate. The state also sends a single unpledged "add-on" delegate.
Obama, who won 55 percent of the state primary, will receive 25 S.C. delegates, while Clinton's 27 percent garners her 12 delegates.
With 18 percent of the vote, John Edwards earned eight delegates who will still go to the convention in his name, even though Edwards formally suspended his campaign.
"I'm hoping, but I'm not expecting" a ticket to Denver, said Subhash Saxena, a Coastal Carolina University math professor chosen as a delegate from the Myrtlewood precinct near the center of the city.
As an Edwards voter, he faces the longest odds. "It's a very tough competition."
Although a lengthy path awaits any individual Democrat hoping the party will send him or her to Denver, 46 statewide delegates make for high chances that someone from the Grand Strand will be in attendance.
Sally Howard, for example, a former Horry County party chairwoman, has been a delegate at three national conventions. Myrtle Beach resident Bonnie Blair, a real-estate company owner, was a delegate for John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, and started on the path to Denver on Saturday at her precinct.
"If you want to make a change, you've got to get involved in it. Anything you can do helps to make a change for the better," Blair said. "It's a very exciting time to be in politics, and I think this is our best chance as Democrats."
The Sun News