State Sen. Dina Titus is doing her best to put a good face on the mess in her convention speech. "Isn't it great to have the confusion of too many Democrats, than too few," she said.

But problems with the Clark County Democratic convention began long before that day.  As you reported, the local Democratic party, while projecting 7,000 delegates, did not provide a venue for a group this size or larger.

The county party did not include anyone from the campaigns in the convention planning.  That was an arrogant mistake.  Otherwise they would have know that the campaigns were encouraging everyone who attended the caucuses to attend the convention.

Obviously the county party chair John Hunt and convention organizer Bill Stanley don't listen to themselves speak.  How else do you explain their ignorance of an unprecedented turnout? And that is the least of their offenses.

If lack of space was the only problem maybe those of us in attendance would not be so angry.  There were so many other blatant problems.  

Like other delegates selected at the caucus, I got a card notifying me of the convention date and site.  It also advised that I could go to the Clark County website to register for the convention.  Once there, I found that I couldn't register online.  I had to print the form and mail it in!  

And it seems that mailing this form in 2 weeks before the convention, along with the requested $50 donation, did little good.  I got nothing back in the mail acknowledging its receipt, no further instructions, and no credentials. Thank goodness for the campaigns calling and emailing me with more information!

I arrived around 7 am that morning and there were more than 1,000 people already in a long line.  And there was just 1 line.  In that line were delegates, hopeful alternates and guests.  Again, what good did it do me to register via mail in advance?  I got to stand in line with everyone.  If the convention is for the delegates, wouldn't you want to focus on getting them registered and into the room?

And there was that strong request for a $50 donation to offset the cost of the convention, but there was no water or anything available for the delegates.  Just what was that $50 for anyway?

But at least I got registered.  I talked to more than 10 people who ended up as alternates because the record of their election as a delegate was not in the credentialing room.  I heard that about 1,000 of the 7,000 delegate records were missing.  The caucuses were more than a month ago and no one noticed that this information was missing and tracked it down?

The convention started well enough until the room became overcrowded.  It went downhill from there.  Finally the alternates and guests were asked to leave the main ballroom so that all the delegates could be seated.  That should have been a given from the start. It would have been nice to been able to see the stage and who was speaking instead of having people stand in front of me blocking my view.

And then out of the blue, we hear a motion to suspend the convention without a clear explanation of what was going on.  Hunt, Stanley and company thought that we were just a bunch of newbies and would follow them like sheep.  They forgot - we are Nevada Democrats, we want to know what is going on and why.  How can you live here and not know that voters are skeptical of those in government and politics?  Of course, we got angry, upset and confused and rejected there motion to suspend the convention  --- we had just voted! The Democratic party is the party of inclusion so to not acknowledge that there were a lot of first time convention delegates who would need and expect information and explanation was just ignorant.

Finally after we heard from the leaders of the campaigns (who, by the way are not responsible for the convention mess) about what was going on, how lots of delegates left due to the disorganized registration process, other were not registered as actual delegates but as alternates because their paperwork had been lost, more were told that an alternate had been seated in their place and they were now the alternate and still others just never got registered in time to participate today.  We also heard about the possiblity of irregularities with the ballot boxes.  The campaigns apologized for the mess, which is more than Hunt and company did.  They said that if we went forward the results would be challenged and we would be back where we started anyway.

It is sad that it took the campaign staff to help shepherd us through this mess.

Going forward we need:

• Hunt and Stanley to step down and stay out of the way of the new convention.  I don't even want to see or hear from them there.
  
• Have the campaigns involved.  We seem to trust them more than our county party and they seem to know what they are doing.