CDP Update 3 – Throwing A Wrench In the Machine

See live, uninterrupted coverage of the circus right here!
Today has been a bit less weird. I can safely say that the comic-book convention metaphor is holding, and I don’t mean that in a good or bad way, just a way.
Anyway.
Today I ran into Assembly Candidate Janet Reilly as I stopped to say hello to our esteemed Senator, Dianne Feinstein. Tons of people were mobbing Sen. Feinstein and camera-phones were ablaze in getting a shared moment with the Senator recorded for posterity.
I also had a nice conversation with Frank Russo of the California Progress Report at his booth from whence he is live-blogging the entire convention.
But my favorite moment was watching the convetion speeches of Phil Angelides and Steve Westly, and it would seem that my previous entry about the Westly beef-fueled blocking of the endorsement vote might have been premature. I spoke with several actual voting delegates who told me how they were selected and how most of them were for Angelides, parties or not. It was most notable that when Steve Westly spoke, his legions of volunteers provided the bulk of his applause, not the delegates, something KTVU reporter Randy Shandobil queried Mr. Westly about at a press conference.
I watched Westly and while he seems like a truly nice person, he also comes off as over-rehearsed and evasive as he did in 1989 when he ran for chair. I chose to throw him a curve ball that was not on any “talking points memo” for the day when the press conference started.
My question? Well, I decided to ask him about his campaign’s use of Myspace.com, which the campaign had trumpeted early on as a sign of his tech-savviness and his outreach to young people.
I asked him if this was the case, why was it that after all the hype and hullaballo, his My Space Profile was linked to only 40 or so friends, while rival Phil Angelides’ profile was linked to over 1000 people.
Now, to be sure, a MySpace profile for a politco is not a big deal, but I wasn’t as interested in the answer as I was interested in seeing how he’d handle such a wacky question, wacky questions and situations being something you need to deal with as a candidate and as Governor. I’d hoped for a joke, or something.
Instead he looked at me in that frozen smile of his and for about a second telegraphed a glare that could only be described as “What the F*CK are you asking me this for?” and then gave a weird, rambling non-answer answer.
I was kinda hoping for a sign this guy could go off script and relax, since his speech was so totally rehearsed he went off speech on less than 10 words. More importantly I was hoping for a sign that we are not repeating the mistake of nominating a Gray Davis or a Mike Dukakis or an Al Gore.
Sadly , it didn’t happen. Oh well.
Next up: The vote showdown in the convention center!
UPDATE: It seems my mayhem was not confined to La Convencion…..this accounting of MySpace.com street cred seems to say it all..