Anecdotes From Invesco (plus Palin!)

It's taken me a day to decide what I should wrote about last night at the Invesco Field.  I have neither the eloquence nor the experience to critique a speech that even Pat Buchanan called the greatest convention speech of all time.  But what I can do, and what I think really is most important, is describe what it was like to be in that stadium.

I arrived at about 2 pm-- the line was already over three miles long.  I had taken the shuttle over to Invesco from downtown Denver, after getting lunch with some new friends I had made.  A nice latino guy named Gerald sat down next to me.  He was the head of standardized testing in San Antonio, a Clinton delegate, and bitterly disappointed by the lack of extra tickets for the Texas delegation.  When we got off the bus, he had us take pictures with the long line.  After about ten minutes in line, we started talking with some Montana delegates in front of us.

"I loved your Governor," he said.

"We do too," they laughed.

"I saw him after the speech.  I told him I wanted to buy some ranch land in Montana, and he said 'you better hurry, because after my speech it just went up in price.'"

We all laughed.

A campaign worker came up and told us that a new line was opening on the other side.  We ran up a flight of stairs and, winded, were told by a friendly Police officer that we had to join another, longer, line.  Gerald got angry and told me to follow him.  I wasn't quite sure how, but somehow he used his delegate powers to have us skip the line, get through security in five minutes, and get great seats.  He, as a delegate, was on the field, but I was in section 108, row, 9, seat 10.  Which was pretty much straight back from the stage, nine rows up.  I was pumped.  

Sitting around me was a picture of the Democratic Party: to my right, a white couple from Reno, NV.  In front of me, a large black family from Mississippi.  To my left, an older black couple who remembered Dr. King's '63 speech.  And behind me, two young, stylishly dressed professionals, who I later found out were an interracial gay couple.  It was like an ad on steroids.

Throughout the day, the excitement built.  John Oliver walked by-- the young professionals went nuts.  Franco Harris walked by-- the guy from Reno started screaming.  Al Sharpton slowly walked past our seats, and the entire section exploded.  

will.i.am performed "Yes We Can."  Stevie Wonder played.  I saw Sheryl Crow for the second time this week and the second time in my life.  John Lewis gave a moving speech, Bill Richardson ripped McCain apart.  Al Gore told us that even though we didn't believe him in 2000, he could assure us that there were differences between the two parties.  

He also reminded us that he knows a little about close elections, and everyone laughed.

The whole evening build toward Barack's acceptance speech, and as the stadium slowly filled the energy grew more intense.  A few people tried to start waves.  One or two succeeded.  But the crowd was well behaved and speakers, whether they were Vice Presidents, ordinary citizens, or the young Colorado campaign chair who implored us to text message "DNC" to 62262 (which you can still do to sign up for the campaign) were listened to.  The speeches were separated by video segments and music.  It was like a giant party.

Finally, Barack came on.  The entire stadium was a madhouse, people waving American flags and holding up signs, screaming and clapping, chanting "YES WE CAN" and "O-BA-MA" (which conveniently have the same number of syllables).  It took several minutes to quiet everyone down, but even when we were quiet no one sat.  Everyone stood for the first lines of the speech, silent and barely breathing.  Flashes flashed like millions of lightning bolts.  Every time an applause line was delivered-- and there were many of them-- the roar of the crowd rose to deafening levels and flags rose like a sea of red, white and blue.  It was everything my High School Government class told me America should be.  

In the middle of his speech, Obama said that "history teaches us that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington.  Change comes to Washington.  Change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership. a new politics for a new time."

I was in tears.  Usually, I say that I am in tears when I mean that I teared up, but this time tears were streaming down my face and I buried my head in my American flag and thought that this vision of America was a vision of the America in which I wanted to live.  I was so overcome with love for my country, or for this image of my country, that I couldn't stop myself from weeping.

After the speech, the fireworks, and the confetti, I turned to the old African-American man to my left.  "Good speech," I said, simply.

"Yes," he said, and paused.  "I was crying"

"I was too."

He took my hand in his, enveloped it really, and looked at me.  We both smiled.  And then a woman a few rows back started chanting "Yes We Can," and soon isolated pockets of chanters from all around the 84,000 Convention goers linked up until everyone was waving their flags, lifting their signs, and raising their voices as one.  Yes We Can.

peace

PS- Sarah Palin?  I guess if John McCain wants to nominate a creationist, anti-abortion even in cases of rape and incest, Pat Buchanan supporting, wind power vetoing Governor who is under ethics investigation, owes her political career to the indicted Ted Stevens and the under investigation Don Young, has been governor for less time than this campaign has gone on, who has never (ever!) said a substantive thing about Iraq (other than, and I quote, "let's make sure we have a plan"), and who in all honesty was picked merely because the McCain camp thinks it can peel off disaffected Hillary supporters who somehow are dumb enough to not realize that this woman is to Hillary Clinton what, say, T.J. Bohn is to Babe Ruth, more power to him.  But I think it really calls into question whether he has the judgement to be president.