As each Presidential candidate was eliminated from the race on each ballot, the eliminated candidates were given an opportunity to speak to the convention. Many took the opportunity to endorse another candidate.

Christine Smith was the most notorious in her angry speech slamming the convention for turning over the LP to conservative Republicans. Ms. Smith was only a party member for a short period of time, less than Bob Barr himself. Considering Ruwart and Kubby were both on the ballot at the time, she was way out of line. Heck, with only six votes, it was clear even the radicals had rejected her.

It’s situations like this that I worry about, when relatively new members take on big roles within the party. Most of the time, nothing bad comes of it. But in this case, Ms. Smith really went off the deep end. She even continued her ranting in the media room press conference.

There was a rumor that Smith was supposed to endorse Gravel in her concession speech, but didn’t when she went off the rails and knew any endorsement would be counter-productive.

Jingozian’s situation was odd. After his nomination speeches, Jingozian gave a nominating speech for Gravel. WTF? I understand that sometimes endorsement deals are made ahead of time so that when eliminated a candidate will immediately endorse another. But putting your own opponent’s name into nomination is just downright odd. Couldn’t Gravel find another person to give a nominating speech? That to me seemed very amateurish for both men.

At any rate, when eliminated, Jingozian gave Gravel his endorsement, to no one’s surprise.

Gravel didn’t give a concession speech until the next day. At the time I cynically thought he was looking for the Green Party’s phone number so that he would be running for their nomination next. Instead Gravel gracefully announced his retirement from electoral politics, and said he would continue to work on the cause of national referendum.

Phillies proved to be the anti-Smith.

He started with a self-depricating joke: He said that he was disappointed that no one had come to him asking to endorse their opponent.

He then went on to encourage the delegates to support whoever wins the race. I immediately leapt to my feet in a standing ovation. He finished his speech loudly and expressively stating, “the enemy is not in this room!”, with his arms stretched out as if to embrace the entire party. Others stood and thunderous applause greeted the sentiment, as Phillies held that pose for a bit. I could almost swear that George was about to cry over the intense emotion of the moment.

For a guy who’s not the most charismatic, and has created more than his fair share of friction within the party, this was his finest moment.

If memory serves, Kubby endorsed Mary Ruwart. But the big bombshell dropped (though not completely unexpectedly) when Root stated that he wished to be part of a Barr / Root ticket. Such a deal for Root’s support was probably unnecessary, as it was expected that most of Root’s supporters would have gone to Barr anyway.