Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

Michigan Democratic Party spring conventions typically are sleepy affairs filled with party regulars giving speeches and calls to action.

Not this year.

In the wake of the election of Republican Donald Trump as president, fueled in part by Michigan voters giving him a 10,704-vote margin of victory and the state's 16 electoral votes, the state party convention Saturday at Cobo Center was packed with nearly 5,000 Democrats pledging to retake the state that, before Nov. 8, had voted for the Democratic presidential candidate dating to 1992.

“This is the best convention I’ve been to in 20 years,” state Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, told the crowd. “I’m pissed and I hope you’re pissed too because we have to turn our anger into action.”

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State Democratic Party chairman Brandon Dillon, who ended up being unopposed and winning re-election as the head of the party, said, “We all know we had a tough year in 2016, but there are two, three things we’re going to do. We need a clearer, more concise message to let people know that we’re the party who stands on the side of working people. We’re going to organize early. We’re not going to wait until 2018 to put people on the ground to harness the energy of the people who have been on the streets for the last two months.

“And we’re going to get back to basics.”

And it was all about the basics Saturday morning as different caucuses elected their leadership for the next two years. The Black and Progressive caucuses were, by far, the biggest with standing-room-only crowds on hand to make sure their voices were heard.

And there wasn’t always a meeting of the minds. Ardent supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who have railed against the leadership of the national Democratic Party for what they see as an election rigged to favor Democrat Hillary Clinton, took over the Progressive Caucus and tried to silence some speakers, including U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn.

She tried to appeal to both sides of the caucus, saying “We need your ideas, we need your energy. I was somebody who said to everybody that Michigan is in play (in 2016) and nobody listened, so I feel some of the frustration that people feel in this room, but I also know we are stronger as we. There is no one in this room who is the enemy.”

Kelly Collison, who started the Michigan for Bernie campaign in 2015, won the leadership of the Progressive Caucus and said it could be a challenge to bring together the two factions of the party.

“I’m still feeling the Bern,” she said to nearly 500 people who crowded into the Progressive Caucus session, but acknowledged that it might be hard to win over Clinton supporters who feel their candidate would have won if Sanders’ supporters had gotten behind her in bigger numbers.

“I think it’s going to be something to be really hard to get over for a long time,” she said. “But If we had a Democrat as president right now, would we have the activism that we’re seeing? The fire and passion is hot right now and we can use that to our advantage.”

The convention also served as a preview of the race for governor in 2018. Both former Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer of East Lansing and Detroit Health Department Executive Director Abdul El-Sayed have announced that they are running for governor, and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, is seriously considering a run also. All three spoke to delegates with messages that could easily be turned into campaign speeches.

Whitmer told the crowd that she's blunt and doesn't have time for nonsense, noting "I don't go out of my way looking for a fight, but I never back down from one, either. It's time for us to buckle up and fight some more. This is our opportunity to take back the state of Michigan. I'm ready to fight, are you?"

Kildee had a big presence at the convention with volunteers wearing T-shirts that read: "Dan Kildee ... He fits Michigan like a glove."

"The only way we win is to fight back and for god's sake, we have to fight back against this effort to put up walls around this country, which is defined by our own diversity," Kildee said. "The sense I have since the days of the election and the days since that inauguration is that for the first time in a long time, it felt really good to fight."

And El-Sayed told Democrats that his experience as a doctor and an immigrant from north Africa would be a valuable asset for the party and the state.

"I'm done with this notion that we have to wait in line, that certain kinds of people cannot rise up and be a part of leadership in this society," he said. "We have the opportunity to rethink the way we do government."

The biggest challenge, however, is making sure the energy from Democrats in the wake of Trump's election is sustainable, said U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak.

"Our challenge is to take this immense energy and organize. That is going to be the answer to Donald Trump," he said. "What we need to do when we leave here is to pledge this is not the end. This is just the beginning of the fight against Donald Trump. He may be president of the United States, but he’s not the president of our values."

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal