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BY ROSARIO PAZ

In print | February 14, 2008

When the Pennsylvania Young Democrats pushed through a petition for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party to consider age as a factor among the delegate selection criteria, Anne Kolker ’08 saw her opportunity to become an alternate delegate, alongside six other delegates, for the 7th congressional district in Pennsylvania in support of Barack Obama.

After jokingly declaring to a friend “You know what? My goal is to somehow get myself to the national convention in 2008,” Kolker never believed that she would manage to follow through the process of actually becoming a delegate for the Obama campaign.

“The thing that I think has allowed me to do this is the Obama campaign has focused very strongly on getting young people involved and engaged,” she said.

In order to become a delegate for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, Kolker had to apply to both the party and the candidate she supports.

During the selection process for delegates, the campaign looks at the biographies of the candidates and selects them according to various factors, including age, gender and ethnicity. This is done to ensure a representative spread of the district’s citizens.

Not only did Kolker have to apply to be a delegate for the party and candidate she chose, but she also had to meet the legal requirement of obtaining 250 valid signatures from the 7th congressional district supporting her delegate candidacy.

Democratic primaries decide the number of delegates a presidential candidate receives according to the proportional number of votes they received within each district. According to Kolker, if Obama were to win three delegates within her district, then the top three delegates that won the most votes would get these spots in the national convention.

“It’s also a competition among the delegates for any of the candidates who gets the most votes,” Kolker said.

Kolker and the other delegates must also help put Obama on the ballot for the state of Pennsylvania by obtaining 2000 signatures, in addition to the delegate signatures, “since no candidate is ever automatically on the ballot,” she said.

They successfully managed to collect more than enough signatures by staking out locales like Borders, the Co-op and Sharples. “The next step of the process is the Pennsylvania primary coming up. I have to get people out to vote in general and get people to vote for Barack and for me because I will be on the ballot,” Kolker said.

Traditionally, as an alternate delegate, Kolker would only be able to participate in the national convention if one of the six delegates decides they cannot go. However, according to Kolker, “if Barack does really well in the 7th congressional district, all of his delegates and the alternate, myself, get to go to the national convention.”

As a delegate, Kolker will take part in deciding the direction the Democratic Party takes during the next four years and the sorts of issues Obama’s campaign will address.

Gail Conner, a lawyer at an engineering firm, is one of the six Obama delegates alongside Kolker within the 7th congressional district. She has taken off work in order to dedicate herself to a campaign during a time in which, she said, “are actually motivating their parents.”

Conner has been a registered Independent all her life up until the current presidential election. She said she registered Democrat and is a supporter of Obama most strongly because of his stance on the war in Iraq.

“Obama’s position is transparent,” Conner said. “He voted against [the war] and I just feel more comfortable with him in that he’s the one most likely to end the war.”

Conner became strongly invested in the campaign because she hopes that the “audacity of hope” ideal that Obama carries through his campaign will help to put behind the “ugly” past of slavery and segregation. According to Conner, Kolker is one of the dedicated individuals that have motivated her.

“We just don’t want the old people with old views to keep us from changing the future. We want a new future that’s not based on the color of our skin but our character, and that’s what [Kolker] represents,” she said.

“The wisdom of my children and people like [Kolker] is actually more accurate than my own, and I don’t say that lightly. Because of people like her, I’m involved. It has a bigger dimension,” Conner said.

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