shelbinator.com

I hate American Idol, and if you watch it, I probably hate you, too. Okay, not really; I have very dear friends in whom I quietly tolerate such behavior, because they quietly tolerate so many obnoxious things about me.

But there is at least one time a year where I might enjoy the guilty pleasure of such irritating reality TV: the season openers. You know, the come-one-come-all auditions where we get to watch Simon et al absolutely berate some squeaky, no-talent narcissist for having the audacity to think they should ever sing outside their own shower? That’s some good stuff! If it’s good for nothing else (and it isn’t), at least Idol provides that good dose of schadenfreude.

It’ll be a little tougher to find out who doesn’t make the round zero cut in the DNC delegate selection process here in Georgia, depending on the internet savvy of those who get the boot and how many bloggers they know. Over in California, one blogger has quite the platform from which to complain about not getting a chance to vote for Barack Obama at the DNC convention in Colorado: Nathaniel Bach writes at Huffington Post.

I’ve spent the past few weeks excitedly sending emails, making phone calls, and explaining the technicalities of Democratic party registration to my family and friends in the Los Angeles area. You see, I am running to be an Obama delegate representing California’s 30th District at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Or at least, I was running until the Obama campaign cut me from the list.

I’m all for the campaigns’ ability to vet their DNC candidates — particularly if it means blocking any Johnny-come-latelys that sat on their ass all year and suddenly want to go to the big show while some of us were, say, freezing our nads off in Iowa (even if only for 3 days). But apparently in California the bar is set pretty high for what qualifies as a true Obama supporter:

The ostensible rationale for the cutting of delegate candidates is to prevent “Trojan horse” delegates from making their way to the Convention floor and then switching allegiances. The vetting and removal of delegate candidates is expressly allowed by party rules. But could the 30th District really have had 73 such turncoats, and was I really one of them? I was a Precinct Captain for the Obama campaign for the California primary; I’ve donated several hundred dollars to Senator Obama’s campaign (the first politician I’ve ever supported financially); and I’ve boosted the campaign in numerous posts on this website.

Apparently Obama’s grassroots are only allowed to grow so tall before they get mowed down.

I think as a blogger it’d be great fun to cross-check the lists and find out who all was deemed so unworthy as to not get the chance to make their case to fellow Democrats. According to Bach, before the campaigns did their slash-and-burn, he found his name “on the official list of registered candidates” provided by, presumably, the California Democratic Party. It was only later that he received the pink slip, of sorts, finding himself missing from the final, vetted list of “approved” delegate candidates.

There’s no such preliminary, pre-vetting list of “official registered candidates” available here in Georgia. The deadline for filing your delegate candidacy was last Friday, April 4; the campaigns have until tomorrow to go through those lists with their red pens, and on Monday the first list we will see is the final, approved list of candidates.

And then we’ll just have to wait and listen for the wailing. I suppose we could call and ask the campaigns’ state offices who they rejected, but I don’t imagine they’ll want to ‘fess up to that themselves.

I’d love to hear from any registered delegate candidates who don’t make the cut — or any current, nervous candidates who made the DPG’s initial filing deadline.