DNCC End of Day 3 and Beginning of Day 4: 8/27-28

Ok, so I went to a party last night.... A long ago friend of mine, who is now a DA in Maryland, Glenn Ivey, arrived for the last two days of the convention (his wife is a Maryland Delegate). They invited me to the Maryland Govenor's party Fodo Irish Pub in downtown Denver after the convention had closed for the night. I haven't seen him for about 25 yrs so this was my chance. It took me about an hour to catch a cab back to my hotel so I had a late night and couldn't update you all last night.

After I last wrote, I decided to go to the Celebratory Reception for all the delegations that met the 2008 DNC Green Delegate Challenge, of which MN was one of 31 states that had 100% participation. Let me explain. The DNC wanted this convention to be carbon neutral. A company called Native Energy--check out their website--calculated the entire carbon footprint that would be made by all the delegations in their travel to and from Denver, hotel stays, travel around Denver, etc. They then divided the total among all the delegates and came up with a carbon footprint "offset"--funding for alternative energy research and production--to "neutralize" our footprint. The offset shares for MN were purchased for us by NWA's Earth Friendly program so we, as a delegation, became essentially "carbon neutral". This is an issue near and dear to me so in the lead up to the DNCC via the delegate listserv email communications, I encouraged people that could to purchase additional offsets to help the MN delegation become "carbon negative". I am happy to report that the MN delegates purchased a third again as many offsets! Anyway, I went downtown and went to this reception hosted by Tava beverages. I believe I was the only one from MN that went. I wasn't able to stay for the entire program because I needed to get to the Pepsi Center for the voting!!!

I don't know how much coverage there was on TV with all the voting but it was quite the emotional drama. Just before us was Michigan who, dramatically got to cast all of their votes--the vast majority going to Sen Obama. I got a great shot of Sen Amy Klobuchar working on her speech. Did you see how she honored the Duluth Bulldogs--girl's hockey team champions! We were all crowded around Amy, Fritz Mondale, RT Rybak, Josie Johnson, Keith Ellison, to mention a few, as Amy and RT announced our delegate count: 78 Obama, 8 Clinton (two delegates were not present for the voting...)! I got some great shots of the event crouching below them! When I get back to St. Paul, perhaps I will figure out how to show those to you.

There was a bit of a mess up with Arkansaw who was sitting just above us. When they gave their speech, the speaker of the convention misunderstood their delegation's vote tally and assumed that they had cast their votes unanimously for Obama (which they hadn't) but as soon as she announced that the lights were off their delegation and she moved on. We rowdy Minnesotans tried screaming out the problem--not sure exactly how it all got straightended out.

Of course, the big drama was Illinois yielding to New York and having Sen Clinton come through the crowd to announce that New York was supporting Sen Obama and proposed that the rules be suspended and by acclimation (I believe that was the word) give Sen Obama the nomination. Wow. The jubilance of the hall was electric!

The major speeches were likely all broadcast to you. I know some of you wanted us to shut up and let President Clinton get going but the energy anticipating his unequivocal endorsement of Obama refused to let us out of our cheering grip. Due to our cheering and his speech lasting longer than his alotted 10 min (I have learned this only today), Gov. Bill Richardson was skipped over and so was his sign. Again, let me explain. You notice how coordinated we all are with our signs? About 5-10 minutes before we hold those signs up, volunteers in the aisle pass them all out to us and instruct us when we should hold them up: after such and such and before so and so. The MN delegation tries (of course) to be very obedient but the rest of the hall just starts to hold them all up right away--some of course are self explanatory, like "Biden" or "Michelle" and the delegations are better with those! Then, folding under peer pressure MN holds them up with everyone else! Anyway, a bit of trivia: the sign we were all to hold up for Gov Richardson said, "New Leadership for a Changing World". We received a call on the MN "Bat Phone" instructing us to skip that sign!

The big speeches you all heard. John Kerry was fabulous. Joe Biden spectacular--wasn't his mother so awesome? Biden appeared to me to be very moved during his speech--especially when talking about his family and what a family it is. I don't know if you all saw this or not but when they were all leaving the stage, his little grandson, whom he carried around the stage, didn't want to leave because the podium was rising up "magically" out of the floor like something out of Star Wars--he was mesmorized! And then, to have Barack come out...Well, I thought I would fall to the floor!! None of us expected that treat!

One other speech that stood out for me, and I am sorry that I cannot recall her name, was given by an Iraq vet. She had been a heliocopter pilot and it went down in Iraq. She was ultimately saved, though lost both her legs, by her platoon. She spoke movingly about her service to our country and the need to give vets the services they so desperately need and deserve upon their return from war. She spoke of her commitment to Barack Obama and how he, among the two candidates (ironically) understands this issue and crucial commitment. She told us all a story of when she was in Walter Reed, Barack came to visit her without press, without pomp and circumstance, alone...just to see how she was doing and feeling. He is SO our guy. I'm getting choked up all over again...

I had planned to go to another Women's Caucus this morning but stayed home to write this due to the tight timing of the Invesco Field event tonight. It will be, well, beyond words (though I am sure I will think of some). Send Barack your prayers and well wishes tonight as he tries to capture our nation and as Patti Smith says, "wrestle the world from fools".