In 2007 Retired Navy Commander Carlos Del Toro staged a strong challenge to 88th District Delegate Mark Cole. He was defeated, but has remained a prolific activist and this year he was elected delegate to the Democratic Convention. I sat down with Carlos Del Toro to talk about the convention and what's happened with him since his run for the House of Delegates.
Q: What have you been up to since the 2007 campaign?
There is life after elections. I had devoted myself 100% to the campaign, and that required putting a lot of things on hold. I went back to my company which has doubled in income and employees since the election. My wife went back to get a degree. I have 4 boys in college. I also ran for delegate, and it's great to be in Denver.
Q: You're a delegate for Hillary in the first district. Who are you going to cast your vote for?
It will be interesting to see how things play out. Obama is the presumptive nominee. He will be the nominee. We will all rally for him and for the cause. I'm very proud that the Obama team called on me to help open his first rally in Virginia after he'd locked up the nomination, and I will work tirelessly to support Obama.
Q: Still, there's going to be a roll call vote, what's the importance of that for Hillary's supporters?
It's important to recognize that she ran a strong campaign and fought for things that a lot of people care about. She did a great job and deserves the recognition. It will be a uniting factor to bring together Hillary's strong supporters and Obama's strong supporters.
It's a healing process and some heal faster than others. What's really fundamental is that for all of the Hillary supporters, you have to look at the choices between Obama and McCain and there really isn't a choice. If for example, you're an older, progressive woman who supported Hillary, you have to look at the effect - especially the catastrophic effect of a McCain supreme court. I understand loss. I've lost an election, but we all have to get on board to win Virginia for Obama. This is too important.
Josh Chernila reporting live from the Democratic National Convention in Denver
So a surprisingly good question to ask and a flip floppery poor non-answer.
Keep up the Good Work Josh!
Hillary's name will be put into nomination and delegates will cast votes. Its a fair hunch that Hillary delegates will vote for her during that process..and until Hillary releases her delegates, they will support her. Carlos sounds like he is prepared to fully support Obama when that point arrives.
Too bad that only cable viewers will see it, unless they can time it to occur between 10 and 11 PM. The broadcast networks, with their free public frequencies, once again see fit to only cover four hours of the entire convention, and in the last hour of prime time. Howard Kurtz points out in today's Post that four years ago in Boston when a state senator from Illinois gave one of the best convention speeches in recent memory, none of the broadcast networks carried it live. I guess "Deal Or No Deal" and "Prison Break" are more important to keeping the American public informed and aware.
http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/me...
If someone is interested enough, they won't be limited to the networks' one hour of coverage.
I guess my real beef is with the couch potatoes who drive the programming decisions. This doesn't speak highly of our electorate.
Sorry for going off-topic; just had to get this out of my system.
:)