I couldn't get an internet signal at Invesco, so these are pretty late. The crowd was incredible and I don't think I can explain how exciting it was. Everyone got American flags, and some strong fellows got huge flags they waved for hours.
If you'd been watching this year's Democratic National Convention on C-Span or PBS, you'd likely be pretty pleased with the way things are going. A positive story is being told about Barack Obama, his family, his personal history, and his accomplishments. An image of John McCain has emerged as an out-of-touch W. clone who is intent on bringing us more of the same. The Democratic Party is the party of the people; the party of peace, prosperity, and progress.
But if you've been following the convention as most people have, via cable news and the Beltway punditocracy, a different image emerges. The Democratic Party is still dominated by the Clintons. The Clintons don't get enough respect from the Democratic Party. The speakers aren't providing any cohesive branding of John McCain, instead focusing too much on Barack Obama's positives. No one is effectively making an effective positive case for Barack Obama. Barack Obama is foolish for focusing so much on regular people by setting his speech at Mile High Stadium. Barack Obama giving his speech at Mile High Stadium is a sign that he's an elite celebrity, out of touch with regular people.
Confused yet? You're not alone. The media is hell bent on selling crisis, division, and a floundering campaign. Who cares if the reality doesn't match up?
5:08 PM MT: Bernice King introduces Martin Luther King III.
5:03 PM MT: John Lewis concludes his speech. A good friend suggests that Lewis should have been in prime time; I agree.
4:58 PM MT: Here's John Lewis, whose speech would be important enough if Barack Obama weren't accepting the Democratic nomination. The blogger lounge just got really quiet. CNN and MSNBC are showing the speech, FOX is not. If you're not watching, turn on the TV now.
4:54 PM MT: John Lewis should be next. Shame on the networks if they don't show his speech on this day which marks exactly 45 years since Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.
4:46 PM MT: Howard Dean speaks...14 minutes ahead of schedule.
4:41 PM MT: The Colorado Democratic Congressional delegation delivers their speeches. First goes Ed Perlmutter, then Diana DeGette.
4:26 PM MT: Here's CO Gov. Bill Ritter. He immediately pushes this convention's prevailing message against McCain-tying him to President Bush. Ritter has a nice speech, but he killed his voice, probably from shouting too much.
4:20 PM MT: The stadium about 3 and a half hours before Obama's speech:
4:19 PM MT: The end zones are half full at every levels. Most of the sections behind the stage are understandably empty, except in the upper deck, which is pretty full about eight to ten rows deep. The first and second decks in front of the stage, to the best that I can see (they are right underneath us), are nearly full, except for certain sections which are totally empty.
4:11 PM MT: Jennifer Hudson belts out the national anthem. An impressive performance.
4:08 PM MT: Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson recites the pledge of allegiance.
It's just after 4:00 PM Mountain time under bright, cloudless skies here at Invesco Field in Denver Colorado, and Nancy Pelosi has called the convention to order!
Let's hear it for Elease Evans, Nellie Pou, Joan Quigley, Pamela Lampitt, Gordon Johnson, and Sandra Cunningham. As reported earlier by both Scott Weingart, who's doing a fantastic job liveblogging the convention for us here at Blue Jersey, and Matt Friedman at PolitickerNJ.com, five members of our legislature stood up to be counted as strong supporters of marriage equality this morning during a presentation by Garden State Equality to our delegation in Denver. We've just added Elease Evans to the list, based on reports from the delegation.
Though there are still doubters, all indications are now that New Jersey will be the third state after Massachusetts and California to guarantee the right to marry for same-sex couples. This kind of momentum, indicated by this morning's surprising development, is incredibly hard to overcome. While civil unions have been a progressive step forward for the cause, New Jersey residents seem to agree that basic civil rights should no longer be denied to a significant portion of our population.
This has been a great week for New Jersey's Democrats. Despite some weird media fixation on whether or not Senator Menendez would be given a speaking role at the Pepsi Center (and everyone knows he'd have delivered the keynote if it were up to me -- and perhaps should have, all things considered), we've seen our share of groundbreaking scenes at this year's convention. Our state's delegation played a big role yesterday, from the morning move to pledge all of our 127 delegates to Barack Obama, to being the last state to have our delegates counted in the roll call before Hillary Clinton's historic motion to nominate Obama by acclamation. It's fitting that six new backers for the marriage equality bill would announce their support at a convention where so much history is being written.
Pallone introduces 10th district Rep. Donald Payne. Payne spends a significant portion of his speech discussing the role race may play in this campaign.
Payne's speech goes on for a while. He just said, "Let me conclude, again," which drew laughter from the audience. Payne finishes his speech with a rhetorical flourish and receives a standing ovation.
NJ-01 Rep. Rob Andrews says it is "essential" to return Frank Lautenberg to the US Senate.
Andrews: when someone asks you, "Where were you the night america changed," you will have the honor of saying, "we were there."
Andrews implores the crowd to "think about some people who aren't here this morning, and where they will be a year or two from now," including children who go to run-down schoolsa and seniors suffering without air conditioning.
Andrews: McCain means a "third Bush term," and a "third bush term" means a "third or fourth deployment" for the brave men and women of the NJ national guard. We have a chance to make a difference.
Finally, Bill Pascrell, who credits yesterday's unanimous vote to Joe Cryan and Jon Corzine. Pascrell: "We need better schools and not bigger jails." The Congressman asks his grandson to stand up, and says "this is what this election is about this November." He then cites Dante's Inferno:
I don't know that Bush and Cheney will be in the hottest levels of Hell, but I sure as hell know Karl Rove will be.
Jun Choi just introduced GSE chair Steven Goldstein, who takes the stage with Brian McGinnis and David Smith, also from Garden State Equality, as well as Babs Casbar. Steven Goldstein talks about their August poll, which found that New Jersey voters support marriage equality by a 50-42 margin.
Steven Goldstein of Garden State Equality
Steven Goldstein talks about the poll, sprinkling in some of his trademark little humor, then passes off to Blue Jersey's Brian McGinnis.
Brian tells the legislators there's nothing to fear from sponsoring marriage equality.
David Smith thanks the sponsors of the marriage equality bill, and then asks if any other legislators in the room would like to join as cosponsor the bill. Asw. Lampitt, Asw. Pou, Asw. Evans, Asw. Quigley, Asm. Johnson and Sen. Cunningham all stand.
Babs Casbar emphasizes the need for state and federal laws protecting transgender Americans.
Now Frank Pallone is introducing the New Jersey delegation.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is delivering an upbeat, funny speech to the New Jersey Delegation. Right now, he is talking about Barack Obama's keynote address from 2004.
Durbin: Alan Keyes is "certifiable, politically."
Durbin continues to weave humor into his account of Barack Obama's journey from Illinois State Senator to Presdiential nominee.
Durbin:
They call [Obama] elite? They listen to the story of his life and call him elite? He knows how many houses he owns.
Durbin implores the crowd not to take a single vote for granted. We need to get every one of the millions of voters who voted in the primary out to vote in the general, so we can beat John McCain and send George W. Bush in his pickup truck back to his ranch in Crawford Texas. An entertaining speech from Senator Durbin.
Now John "Landslide" Lynch is speaking about his experience as Governor of New Hampshire. Lynch describes his effort to pass a bill to raise the compulsory education age from 16 to 18, in an effort to reduce the state's high school dropout rate.
New Jersey may not yet have a speaker at this year's Democratic National Convention, but during last night's vote, the Garden State took center stage. The state cast the last recorded votes of the roll call, before New Mexico yielded to Illinois, which yielded to New York, whose home state Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton moved to end the roll call and declare Barack Obama the Democratic nominee by acclamation.
The stage for yesterday evening's outstanding piece of political theater was set that morning, when New Jersey's delegation voted to unanimously support Barack Obama for president of the United States. Yesterday morning, New Jersey's pledged and unpledged Clinton delegates offered the strongest gesture of unity possible.
After Wednesday's delegation breakfast, I asked Congressman Rush Holt about the unanimous vote. He answered:
It's nationally important that New Jersey, one of the strongest bastions of support for Hillary Clinton...would go so enthusiastically—not just unanimously, but enthusiastically unanimously for Barack Obama.
Here is Corzine, casting New Jersey's vote:
And a transcript of the Governor's remarks:
Madame secretary, as the proud governor of a great great state, the Garden State, New Jersey, home of the Super Bowl Champion Giants, the Boss anbd Bon Jovi, where the sun rises on our shores and sets over our green mountains in the west, where our people are industrious, entrepreneurial, and every once in a while have an attitude, we, we, the democrats in one of the most trailblazing, progressive states in the nation, providing healthcare, paid family leave, and making sure every child has a quality education, we proudly, we prouldy and unanimously, unanimously I repeat, vote for the next president of the united states, a person who will lead us to the change this country needs, who will inspire america with hope and promise, a leader who will inspire america with hope and promise, we unanimously cast our 127 votes for Barack Obama.
Last night, Democrats finally started pushing the simple narrative that electing John McCain means four more years of the same Bush policies. At this morning's New Jersey delegation breakfast, New York David Paterson took that message a step further.
Paterson pointed out that John McCain is not merely the same as President Bush. Instead, using an extended analogy to astronomical phenomenon of parallax, Paterson argued that McCain is worse than Bush. The Empire State Governor cited several examples, from taxes to health care, where McCain's position is farther from the American public than Bush's.
Just like the man himself, Paterson speech was phenomenal. Paterson is legally blind, but he does not use braille or large print notes in his speeches. Instead, he has his staff read them to him, and he memorizes them. This morning, his speech drew the most laughs and the loudest applause. If Mark Warner's keynote speech from last night was something of a letdown, Paterson's breakfast astronomy lecture far exceeded the high expectations I had for him.
Five Obama delegates made their way this morning to the Sheraton Tech Center for the delegation community service project, part of an effort organized by Democrats Work. Along with delegates from Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Idaho, and several other states, they loaded many tons of food onto that big truck you see in some of the pictures below.
(From L to R): Peggy Hurley (Woodstown), Liz Lempert (Princeton), Diane Zitek (Morristown), Marie Young (Cherry Hill), Liz Junod (Allendale)
Liz Junod and Peggy Hurley load food into boxes.
Peggy Hurley, Diane Zitek and Marie Young.
Liz Lempert (3rd from right) chats with a delegate from another state.
Blue Jersey's inside sources at the convention in Denver are reporting that a motion was just made and unanimously carried by voice vote to pledge New Jersey's delegates to Senator Barack Obama by acclamation, without the need for a roll call vote. Among those speaking in favor of the motion were Rep. Frank Pallone and labor leader Donald Norcross.
Upon passage, the enthusiastic Jersey crowd gave the motion a standing ovation. The mood of the room was summed up by Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, who remarked that Garden Staters are going to make it clear that "no matter where we were in the primary, we are coming together for victory."
I think that makes the score Unity - 127, PUMAs - 0.
Updated. Acclimation / Acclamation... Whatever. I was in a rush to beat Friedman. LOL!
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey got the crowd involved:
The people of Pennsylvania can't afford four more years of Bush-Cheney economics, and with John Mccain, that's exactly what we'd get. John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick.
The Bush-McCain Republicans inherited the strongest economy in history and drove us into a ditch. ...They ran up the debt, gave huge subsidies to big oil companies, and now they're asking for four more years.
How 'bout four more months? We can't afford four more years of deficit and debt, drift and desperation. Not four more years. Four more months. And we can't afford another president who will veto children's health insurance for 10 million children, or who will keep senior citizens from seeing the doctors they trust. Not four more years. Four more months.
The entire arena shouted that last sentence with the Senator.
[Senator McCain] doesn't understand how the policies he has supported and wants to perpetuate have so terribly misfired.
We cannot afford four more years of failing economics and a failing economy.
Our children can't afford more of the same.
Our seniors can't afford more of the same.
Our working families can't afford more of the same.
John McCain's good friend Phil Gramm says we're in a "mental recession," and that the middle-class folks worried about their futures are just "whiners." Barack Obama knows that pursuing the failed policies of the past is no way to build America's future.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (IL):
This election comes down to a simple question: do we want four more years of Bush-McCain or do we want the change we need?
George Bush has put the middle class in a hole and John McCain has a plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush's shovel.
The Walshes and families like them can't afford four more years of playing second fiddle to the well-connected and the powerful. And our country can't afford four more years of Bush-McCain economics.
Gov. Ed Rendell (PA):
[G]uess who voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time? Senator John McCain.
Now, as another Republican convention approaches, we are hearing more of the same
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (MD):
This November, we can't afford four more years of the same.
Gov. Joe Manchin (WV):
[The people of West Virginia] can't afford four more years like the last eight.
Gov. Jim Doyle (WI):
We are ready to reject John McCain's campaign that offers nothing but four more years of the same.
Mark Warner may be giving tonight's keynote address, but all eyes and ears will be focused on Hillary Clinton, who will address the convention last. I have not seen the speech yet, but I would expect Senator Clinton to spend a great deal of time hitting McCain, who is trying to win over her supporters with ads like "Passed Over." Hillary weighed in on Senator McCain's new ad earlier this week:
They just showed the moving Ted Kennedy tribute video, and now the Liberal Lion of the United States Senate has taken the stage at the Pepsi Center.
Update #1 Kennedy: "I pledge to you that I will be there next January to witness" Barack Obama's inaguration. The crowd breaks out in chants of "Teddy, Teddy."
Update #2 Kennedy: Our destination is "not merely victory to our party but renewal of our nation."
Update #3 Kennedy closes his speech and exits to the strains of "Still the One". Presumably, the DNCC got permission from NY-19 Congressman John Hall to use the song; Hall has fired off cease and desist letters to both George W. Bush and John McCain for using the song in their campaign rallies.
