For state Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, being a member of the Mississippi delegation at the Democratic National Convention is nothing new.
“This is my eighth one. I started in ’88 with Michael Dukakis in Atlanta,” Jordan said.
But Jordan won’t be the only Greenwood resident attending the party’s convention in July. Paulette Palmer will be representing Mississippi as a delegate for the fourth time.
In 1992, Jordan was in New York City when Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was nominated for the presidency and again in 1996 in Chicago when Clinton was seeking re-election.
Jordan was a delegate at the nominations of Vice President Al Gore in 2000 in Los Angeles and U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2004 in Boston. That year, a relatively unknown state senator from Illinois named Barack Obama delivered the keynote address.
Jordan attended the 2008 convention in Denver, where Obama, then a U.S. senator from Illinois, was selected as the party’s standard-bearer. He was also at the 2012 convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Obama was selected to run for a second term.
Jordan said one of the highlights of his political career was “when I cast Mississippi’s votes for Barack Obama in 2008.”
He said he never thought he’d live to see an African-American be nominated by a major political party, let alone one become president.
This year’s national convention will be held from July 25-28 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The state’s delegation has 46 members, Jordan said.
Jordan is a member of the 2nd Congressional District delegation, which has four men and five women.
Palmer, like Jordan, is an experienced delegate on the national level. She is the wife of Greenwood City Councilman Carl Palmer.
“I’ve been (to conventions) five times before. I’ve been a delegate three times. As a delegate, you get to be on the floor,” she said.
Palmer was a Mississippi delegate in 1996, 2000 and 2012. She said she learned a lot through the experience.
“It was just so enlightening. It was like the first time going someplace,” Palmer said.
Jordan and Palmer were elected delegates at the 2nd Congressional District’s Democratic Convention, held April 9 at Mississippi Valley State University.
Although the process for becoming a delegate is fairly easy for established political leaders such as Jordan, it is harder for those with lower profiles, Palmer said.
“It’s just like running for local election. You have to get out there and get people to know you,” she said.
To help secure a spot, Palmer employed her four grandchildren and daughter-in-law to help pass out literature about her candidacy.
Palmer said she’s grateful for the vote of confidence people gave her.
“It’s really an honor to be a delegate. To have their confidence that I would represent them well,” she said.
Jordan said his father, the late Cleveland Jordan, who was active in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, had a wish that one day one of his sons would meet the president of the United States.
Jordan said his father would never have imagined that an African-American would become president, let alone a two-term one.
Jordan, who is also president of the Greenwood Voters League, said he has met with three presidents, Jimmy Carter, Clinton and Obama
He also met Hillary Clinton, this year’s Democratic presidential front-runner, who spoke at the Voters League’s annual banquet in 1991.
Jordan said being elected a delegate to the national convention is an honor.
“I’ve been consistent and been blessed of these last 32 years,” he said.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
