24th State Senate convention. Photo by CTBlogger, May 19 2008.
Since the server went down half way through the convention, here's my brief report on what happened.
In what should be considered one of the more interesting state senate conventions, although Terry Tierney was just one vote short from forcing a primary, Duane Perkins won the nomination and now faces Republican nominee (and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton's chief of staff) Mike McLaughlin for the senate seat. Also throwing his hat into the race was publisher of the Immigrant Newspaper, and owner of owner of One Stop Variety, Manuel Bataguas who picked up one vote.
Both Perkins and Tierney picked great individuals to present their political resume to the delegates with Perkins being nominated by former Congressman James Maloney and Tierney being nominated by former mayoral candidate Helena Abrantes. And what was a surprising move, after the nominations, a member of the delegation proposed that each of the candidates give a five minute presentation and sell themselves to the delegates before the vote.
Asked about his next move, and whether he would try and collect the necessary signatures to trigger a primary, Tierney said he would consider it but what's most important is party unity and taking back the senate seat from the Republicans.
From last night, here's footage of the convention (including a brief interview I did with Perkins after the convention was concluded).
UPDATE: Attaboy! The News-Times updated the site and corrected the error.