Politics

It's 10 am in Denver and I am standing in line at Invesco Field waiting to get in, where I will be omw of hundreds of volunteers. In 10 hours, Barack Obama will make history by accepting his parties nomination to be the next President of the United States of America. 

A little over two months ago, I left Los Angeles and my big law firm job to join Barack Obama's Campaign for Change, and came out to the new battleground state of Colorado. Now, as I await tonight's proceedings, I see the volunteers, the vendors, and the security staff pour in, the excitement is evident. 

Over 80,000 people will be in attendance tonight, the largest crowd in the history of political conventions. As part of the staff here on Colorado, Ihelped distribute some of the Community Credentials issued to ordinary citizens and volunteers, and their excitement is palpable. 

Tonight's speech will be more than a convention. It's the political equivalent of Woodstock.

A Coda

My words would pale in comparison to Barack Obama's; the images I could describe would not do justice to the images on television, or the sights of those present.  As I stood in the aisle at the end of the speech, I saw the African American woman to my right crying--knowing that her country had taken a giant step forward that she had maybe never imagined was possible--and I saw the white woman to my right, the same tears in her eyes. I saw the older, white-haired man in a perfectly tailored gray suit and blue tie standing on his chair applauding with the same gusto as the 15-year old kid with braces who had volunteered, who promised to remember this day his entire life.

But today, the fireworks have stopped, the parties have ended, and the confetti has been swept up.  The delegates are filing out of town, back to California and the Carolinas; to Washington state and Washington DC.  But here in Colorado--like everywhere else across the country--the reality hits home, for we have only 67 days left to make sure that the convention will not be just a footnote in history, but the beginning of the Change that we need.

On our last full day in Denver, we were all pretty tired. Ryan and Eboney (“the children”) slept in, and those of us in our respective dotages were up and working early on blog posts, video editing and setting up meetings for the day. We were napping when Michael got a call from Marianne Williamson’s assistant, saying that she was in downtown Denver and ready to see us immediately.  Showers were had, faces were shaved, and we flew to the Hyatt to film a video of Marianne supporting Bob. This astonishingly good opportunity is another example of the strength of Bob’s “peace people” connections.

Bob scored a ticket for the Convention floor, and we relaxed and watched Joe and Bill on TV while he was gone.  Our last Convention event, post-Pepsi Center, was the Black Caucus party, sponsored by the National Black Caucus of State Legislators We were in high spirits after a good day’s work, particularly the meeting with Marianne Williamson, but we were not sufficiently elated to approve Michael and Ryan’s plan to live life to the fullest by going out with open shirts, visible chest hairs, and necklaces. Appropriately dressed, we piled into the Malibu to drive to the Denver Public Library where the Caucus party was to be held.

This week has provided some of the best people watching imaginable. I have seen young, old, gay, straight, black, white, Latino, Asian, hard-core politicos, first-time convention looky-loos, pro-choice demonstrators, pro-life demonstrators, people dressed up as Uncle Sam, machine-gun toting police, pranking Daily Show reporters, politicians (and their staffers), volunteers, Obama lovers and haters, Hillary lovers and haters, celebrities, executives, lobbyists, a guy on a unicycle, athletes, snipers, journalists, techies and bloggers. Did I miss anyone?