Tuesday’s DNC roll call: Delaware Pass, Rhode Island Calamari, and other highlights

From delivering voices from the outer reaches of the U.S. islands in the South Pacific to a urge for everyone to support Rhode Island ” Calamari Comeback ‘, the call for’ programming ‘ Tuesday night’s Democratic National Conference presents an unusual opportunity for the party: an opportunity to visually represent the diversity of the nation, including its territories, in a way that many Americans rarely see.

In some ways, the DNC has been hoarded by the limitations of having a full four-day political convention on Zoom. The first-night speaker lineup, which all presented almost empty rooms, came out as “an emphatic telethon” in the words of Giovanni Russonello of the New York Times.

Tuesday night’s call – the moment when each state traditionally presents its choice for the presidential candidate – has some of the usual procedural traditions. Many viewers, for example, were confused as to why Delaware’s delegate, Gov. John Carney and Sen. Tom Carper, chose to “pass” instead of signaling her nomination.

But that was actually just a tradition in which the home state of the nominee often last goes into the roll call. Because Delaware is Joe Biden’s home state, the state chose to “pass” its turn (states vote alphabetically in the roll call) so that their delegates could then return at the end of the procedure. With this move, delegates can cast the decisive nominating votes for the state’s favorite son or daughter.

While that moment may have been strange to new viewers, it was actually one of the only moments of the roll call that felt familiar. Because this year’s congress was virtual, the segments – some pre-scheduled and some live – allowed numerous delegates to show off a bit of their home states and territories, in all their quirks and charm.

So for almost certainly the first time in the nation’s history, one delegate cast 33 votes for Biden while wearing a snow leopard mask (Nebraska), while another delegate from Rhode Island presented an impassioned plea for Covid-19 economic recovery while he next to a plate of fried calamari. Representatives of the Northern Mariana Islands, adorned with flower crowns, reminded the rest of the people of America that although they nominate political candidates, they cannot vote in elections. Representatives in Las Vegas … probably did everything you would expect representatives in Las Vegas to do.

Democratic National Convention

The attendees of the roll call, some awkward or pitiful on camera, some wanting to present their messages in a short time frame, decide the monotony of the typical convention procedures, which usually play with great ceremony and sobriety. Viewers who tuned in to the convention of their homes remained delighted by the mix of quirky skin-spinning flavors and national diversity that brought the roll call to the procedure – as well as the chance to see beautiful, unique parts of the country in a time that travel then the immediate area of ​​everyone is limited.

But there were also a lot of gloomy messages in the mix. As my colleague Anna North remarked, “the format that states and territories could show all Americans their history, such as Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell’s speech from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, as the capsule history of the Oklahoma delegation of the Tulsa racial massacre. ”

And many of the nominating representatives noted the urgency of action on issues such as climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. “They call us essential workers, but treat us like we once were,” said Geraldine Waller, a Nebraska meat pack worker and wearer of the so-called leopard mask. “We are humans, not robots, not discarded.”

The format of Tuesday night’s roll call probably turned Waller’s message home, emphasizing the humanity of the many people for whom this year’s election is an urgent, existential problem. It was a much more authentic stage than political conventions would normally allow – but often the one we needed most.

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