North Coast Demos head to convention

Chip Roberson of Sonoma first registered as a Democrat about six months ago. A Telecom Valley millionaire, semi-retired at 45 and suddenly addicted to politics, he's voted for Libertarians, Greens, Republicans and Democrats.

Rachel Binah, a former Mendocino Coast innkeeper, is a veteran political activist, a passionate defender of the coast against offshore oil drilling for two dozen years. At 65, she's a lifelong liberal Democrat who never voted any other way.

Both will be on the floor as delegates to the Democratic National Convention starting Monday in Denver.

They're on the same team, California's 441-member delegation to the four-day convention, united in their determination to see Illinois Sen. Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States.

But they come to it with vastly different perspectives.

Binah, one of California's

66 superdelegates by virtue of her Democratic National Committee membership since 1992, will attend her sixth straight Democratic convention.

"Imagine you're in a huge room, and everyone you've always wanted to meet is in that room. And you can talk to any of them," said Binah of Little River, just south of the town of Mendocino.

Roberson, one of California's 241 elected Democratic delegates, is making his rookie appearance at a national convention. "It looks like it's going to be a whirlwind," he said. "There's always something to do."

A computer engineer born and raised in Appalachia in a conservative Republican family, Roberson admitted that he "stumbled into" party politics this year.

An independent voter for 25 years, he was still registered "declines to state" in January when he volunteered to work in Reno for the Obama campaign just before the Nevada Democratic caucuses on Jan. 19. He liked Obama's approach to foreign policy and success in collecting small campaign donations.

His wife, Terri, was for Hillary Clinton, but Roberson sensed the former first lady would be a "hard sell" in parts of the nation and would drive some voters to support Republican John McCain.

In Reno, Roberson worked the phones and walked neighborhoods for two days, hearing people express their frustrations and yearning for change. Clinton won the Nevada caucuses, but Roberson was hooked. "It was transformative for me," he said.

Back home, he signed up as data manager for the Obama campaign in California for three weeks before the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primary, which Clinton also won. Roberson also changed his registration to Democrat and donated $2,450 to the Obama campaign.

On April 13, Roberson went to the 1st Congressional District Obama caucus in Napa and was elected as a district-level convention delegate by nine votes. He stepped up in the Obama campaign hierarchy as regional field organizer for the 1st and 6th districts, which together cover the coast from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border.

His volunteer workday starts early, on the telephone and the laptop, organizing events and building teams to once again hit the Reno area for Democratic votes in the November election.

The Democrats feel politically secure in California, Roberson said, but Nevada is a battleground state, and Washoe County (including Reno) is a particular target because it has voted for every president but one since 1912.

"It keeps me hopping," Roberson said. "I'm glad I don't have a job."

Roberson, one of the co-founders of the Petaluma telecom startup Cerent Corp. in 1997, was enriched by the company's $7.3 billion buyout by Cisco Systems in 1999. He lives in Sonoma, not far from the historic Plaza, in the same neighborhood as winemaker Don Sebastiani and moviemaker John Lasseter.

According to federal records, Roberson has donated more than $6,000 to Democratic candidates and organizations since 2003. Binah's donations total nearly $15,000 since 1997.

Political conventions are an advocate's promised land, Binah said. Binah recalled boarding a hotel elevator during the 1988 convention in Atlanta, her first, and meeting Al Gore, the Tennessee senator making his first presidential run.

"I had nine floors to lobby him about protecting the coasts," Binah said. "He didn't know what hit him."

She liked New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for the Democratic nominee last year, endorsed Clinton after Richardson dropped out of the race, and switched to Obama when it "became very clear to me" that Clinton would not win the nomination.

As an elected delegate, Roberson is pledged to vote for Obama at the convention. Binah, who got phone calls this year from Clinton and Obama, is free to vote as she sees fit, but is committed to Obama.

Clinton's name will be placed in nomination, and her supporters haven't given up, either. Binah said she received about 500 e-mails from Clintonites in mid-August urging her to vote for Clinton.

On Thursday night, Binah, the political veteran, and Roberson, the newcomer, expect to be at Denver's Invesco Field cheering Obama's acceptance speech.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.