It was March 2005 when a revolution rocked Colorado Democrats in the ballroom of a Tech Center hotel.
“Be the change,” chanted liberal activists angling for Pat Waak to edge out chairman Chris Gates for the job of running the party.
Fed up with the establishment dissing long-shot candidates, Waak promised to be more democratic, small D, as she snagged the chairmanship by by a three-vote margin.
Gates had made headlines in 2004 for bullying a gaggle of liberal Colorado delegates to that year’s national convention. Irked by the party’s shunning of underdog Mike Miles, an anti-war candidate for U.S. Senate, 13 of the state’s 63 delegates were hell-bent on nominating peacenik Dennis Kucinich even after he dropped his bid for president.
Gates says he was under “tremendous pressure” back then from the John Kerry campaign to serve up a unanimous delegation.
While he spent his days scolding the delegates in rants that holdout Vicki Rottman recalls as “annoying,” Colorado still made news during a sleepy convention for casting the largest number of votes for Kucinich.
“Our party needs to restore people’s right to speak out and voice opinions,” Waak, who rose up among the disaffected, said upon winning office in 2005. What a difference three years makes.
I was in Boston at the 2004 convention and sat through delegation breakfast after delegation breakfast with Gates acting like a camp counselor from hell, trying to boss around the holdouts in their “Be the Change” T-shirts.
But even Gates at his most petulant pales compared with a move this month by Waak (who changed the locks at party headquarters the week she beat him for the job in 2005.)
In a stunning act of Democratic deju vu, Waak has tried to use her party machinery to silence an outspoken Hillary Clinton holdout.
“You are hereby directed to come in to the Party Headquarters and explain your comments and why you should remain a national delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention,” reads a letter from Waak’s deputy, Billy Compton, to Sacha Millstone. The Boulder delegate plans to cast her vote for Clinton instead of Barack Obama, arguing — convincingly — that Clinton did win 18 million primary votes nationwide.
Waak has claimed her office wrote the missive in response to a complaint from an anonymous party member questioning Millstone’s loyalties. (Speaking of party loyalties, Compton long worked as election chief for Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson before taking his job with the Dems.)
Waak tried to explain Compton’s blustery tone by noting that he’s a lawyer “and that’s why he writes like that.” She distanced herself from the letter, finally refusing to say anything at all.
Speaking out, I guess, doesn’t look so appealing any more.
“Real unity doesn’t come from telling people to shut up,” says Millstone, who will not be gagged.
Gates defends Waak for “just doing her job” but adds that the letter “was one of those things that made more sense before than afterwards, if you know what I mean.”
As it turns out, Gates says, he and Waak are “good buds now” and even had coffee Tuesday.
That should give Democrats hope that unity — if not unanimity — also may be possible for Clinton and Obama.
But the question remains what “the change” Waak promised really means — beyond switching out the locks.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
