Tuesday and Wednesday

The first event we made it to was the reception sponsored by Microsoft for the Washington State Delegation. This was our first experience with the updated campaign finance reform. The hors d’oeurves and drinks were flowing. The most intoxicating thing, though, was the atmosphere. Everyone realizes the importance of this election, but the air had a lightness, like they were coming out for the first warm day in the spring. My mother was worried about getting in but any civil rights activist gets a free pass in Democratic circles. There were four or five people I met from the caucuses. I ran into the guys who did a video for Obama that got some play on youtube, “Fired up and ready to go”. They even got to talk about it at the Obama rally in February. They pulled the governor aside and took my picture with her.
My friend, Chris, took us to a party for the national black caucus but we didn’t get there until 2 when it had ended at midnight. We didn’t get home until four, though, because the car we borrowed wouldn’t start. Mom was such a trooper.

Wednesday was a good day, when we finally got up. We had lunch downtown in the zoo of milling democrats. An acquaintance from my speech audition was on a committee handed my two tickets at the convention center. I was flying high. I was so worried that I wouldn’t get my mother into the stadium and now, 24 hours before we had to show up at Invesco, it was all fine. There was more to come at the convention center. Incidentally, that’s not where the convention took place. That was at the Pepsi Center, the hockey/basketball arena. We saw a display of some original documents including a photo of Franklin and Eleanor and an 1844 copy of the Declaration of Independence. We made our way to the auditorium where we watched the role call vote. This was an emotional tug of war. It moved ponderously slow yet had high drama. Each state was called by name and each one had a short but completely ridiculous speech before announcing their ballot totals. Almost every state tilted for Obama even the states that Clinton won. I had a hard time believing what I was seeing. The outcome hadn’t been in doubt for months but after all this time and hard work; after all of the political in-fighting, it was finally going to happen. California and Illinois passed on their turn which we wondered about. It was a tear-jerking moment when Kennedy’s Massachusetts went unanimously for Obama. Then New Hampshire did the same. Both these state were important for Clinton in the primaries. Then Hillary Clinton had a great moment. New Mexico yielded their time to Illinois. Then Illinois yielded that time to New York. The camera cut to New York to show Clinton was making her way to the front. She moved to suspend the roll call voting and nominate Obama by acclimation, an acclimation that was a roar in both the convention hall and the auditorium. It sounds almost bland as I write it, but there was pure joy in the crowd.

We took a break from the auditorium to get dinner with our hosts, Kiran and Michael. On the way, we saw a march up ahead. There were gaggles of riot police down the street. One sheriff stopped my mom and told her that she shouldn’t go that way. The march could get violent. The funny thing was that he didn’t think to mention that to Michael when he walked by. What wasn’t funny was the police presence. I wanted to yell at him, “What is so dangerous about peace protesters? They’re the ones who are unarmed.” Fortunately, I held my tongue.
When I travel to other countries, one of the little things I notice that remind me I am in another country are guards, police, and military in public armed with automatic weapons. In Denver this week, it was common to see police with machine guns, tear gas rifles and 42” batons. What’s more, Michael noticed that many of them were not Denver police. They came from other places. I don’t know of any incidents occurred like in St. Paul and New York but the effect to me was chilling.
My mom seemed to take the sheriff seriously so she sat on a bench while Michael and I went off to take pictures of the marchers. I made a show of saying it couldn’t be any worse than when I watched the Mexican police tear gas a protest in Oaxaca. I was still mad about the sheriff’s comment. The marchers were lively but very tame. I took some shots of the riot police preventing them from making a “wrong turn”.
We came back to the convention center auditorium after dinner. We missed Bill Clinton’s speech but got to see John Kerry’s excellent tongue in cheek attack on the Republican record. Wednesday evening was dedicated to burnishing the Democrats credentials on foreign policy and national defense. Patriotism and service are easy points to make. Despite being quite jaded, I found the video narrated by Tom Hanks and Tammy Duckworth’s speech quite moving. The more important thing, however, is linking that to policy. For years, the Republicans have been able to push their patriotism so far, that it really didn’t matter that their policy was bad. This time, the Democrats have taken some of that, but they made some good points about veterans’ affairs and dealing with Georgia. My personal view is that there is still too much testosterone in rhetoric about Afghanistan and terrorism. The things that will bring lasting peace in Kabul are the same things that will solve the violence in New Orleans or Detroit. Joe Biden gave a good speech as well; a sliding triple, but no home run.
Let me go on a tangent here and say that the convention was extremely well orchestrated. You could see that by how cohesive the major speeches were. Messages and turns of phrase were embedded very cleverly throughout. Still, it seemed like Biden and Obama didn’t get the best lines. They got what might get the most appeal out of the national television audience, but to me, the best ideas came from elsewhere. Does that mean that these ideas will take a back seat in January or will they rise to the surface when it’s politically safer? The message that I have carried away from this is that for all my jokes about being a political tourist this week, it is important to make it here and see behind the curtain, even if it’s just a peek. The political process is more accessible to the public than we think.