Mary Jo Neville is a longtime staff member of the Maryland State Teachers Association, now assigned to Howard County, where she lives in Dayton. She has been a member of the Democratic National Committee for a total of 18 years, making her an automatic “superdelegate.” Denver will be her seventh convention.
What’s it like to be a superdelegate?
This is the first time anybody ever called me a superdelegate. Mostly, nobody ever paid attention to that. This year we suddenly became very popular.
Who did you support?
I initially supported (John) Edwards, then when he dropped out, went to (Barack) Obama. (Hillary) Clinton or Obama would each make fabulous candidates and I could happily support either one.
I started to hear from my family, in-laws, my younger nieces and nephews, who were excited and calling me to tell me that they had registered to vote. And many of them had been Edwards people, too. “OK, we want you to go with Obama.” That was showing me up close and personal that this was something unusual. People who had never done any more than vote, or in some cases, had never even voted were getting involved and getting excited. I thought that could turn into something really big.
That’s what’s different?
That was what really pushed me into the Obama camp. I didn’t have any problem with Hillary. I thought she did great. I just saw more enthusiasm with Obama. And I thought that we needed everything we could get going into this election.
What are you looking forward to at the convention?
I’m not looking forward to sleeping because we won’t be doing any of that. Every convention is special in its own way, but this is just going to be like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Especially on Thursday night, in outdoor Unesco field, with 70,000 people. Just bringing everybody together and the excitement.
The thought that we are probably, actually going to elect an African-American man president — I’m not sure I ever thought I’d see that. It seems the most natural thing now. And I’m so proud of the Democrats for putting it in contention — a woman and a minority.
It’s just great.
