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An Emotional Moment for Roz Wyman, California's Oldest DNC Delegate

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Longtime Democratic activist Roz Wyman, 85, is the most senior member of the California delegation to the party’s national convention.  (Scott Shafer/KQED)

In Rosalind Wyman's baby book there's a photo of her in a carriage and in the background is a poster for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The year was 1932. You might say she was infused with politics from the very beginning.

In '32, her mother insisted on putting a Roosevelt sign in the window of the family drugstore in Los Angeles.

"My poor father," Wyman says. "He thought we were going to lose business because back then being a Democrat was like being a communist!"

For decades Wyman, known as Roz, has been deeply involved in California's Democratic Party. In 1953, at the age of 22, she became the youngest person ever elected to the L.A. City Council. She played a key role in getting the Brooklyn Dodgers to move west to Los Angeles.

In 1984, she ran the convention in San Francisco, where Rep. Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated for vice president on a major party ticket. Wyman was instrumental in choosing New York Gov. Mario Cuomo to be the keynote speaker, a speech that launched him onto the national scene.

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Wyman says it's been frustrating to see so many other countries, including Great Britain, Germany and Israel, elect women leaders before the United States.

"You mean to tell me America, the greatest country in the world, couldn't produce a great woman to be our president?" Wyman asks. "But we've got a chance this time."

Wyman has been to every Democratic convention since 1952, except for the one in 1968. But this one, she says, is like no other.

"This convention has such meaning for me," Wyman told me. "I'm emotional about it."

Like many women here, Wyman expects to be overcome Thursday night when Clinton accepts the nomination.

"I don't know -- it may be a flood coming from my eyes," Wyman says, "but it really is meaningful."

Thinking back to her original political mentor, Wyman says, "My mom would be walking on the clouds."

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