Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi kicked off the final day of the Democratic National Convention at about 4 p.m. Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson then led the Pledge of Allegiance and Jennifer Hudson belted out the National Anthem, complete with red fireworks shooting off over the jumbotron. People have been waiting for hours to get through security, but Mile High stadium is now about three quarters full.

Democrats wasted no time in attacking John McCain. “I’m Howard Dean; I’m the chairman of the Democratic National Committee — and I know exactly how many houses I own,” the former Vermont Governor said at the beginning of his address. He then painted the GOP nominee as a lackey for the Bush administration. “John McCain is not a maverick,” he said. “John McCain is a yes man.”

On the floor of the stadium I spoke with Omar Adams, a 36-year-old Brooklyn Center resident who’s attending his first national convention. “Barack Obama motivates people,” he says, surrounded by dancing Minnesota delegates. “It was a phenomenal race beteween him and Hillary Clinton. Hillary stepped down gracefully. Now we have an opportunity to elect someone who’s going to make fundamental sweeping changes across our nation.” Adams has been overwhelmed by the convention. “It was phenomenal,” he says of the first three days at Pepsi Center. “I got there at three o’clock each day, stayed until the very end. You just can’t get enough of it. We’re going to have 75,000 people in this stadium. That tells you people are fed up with what’s going on. People can’t afford the things they want to buy. Wages haven’t gone up, yet gas has doubled. We need to stop fighting the war in Iraq and start paying for things at home.”

I also ran into state Sen. Mee Moua and her husband Yee Chang just outside the floor. They’d just waited two hours to pass through security. “It’s been awesome,” says Chang about the convention. “You see all the people here. They’re from all walks of life, all colors and creeds.” Moua says the family interactions of the Obama and Biden families over the first three days of the convention impressed her. “You don’t stage stuff like that,” she says. “It’s those moments of humanity. Not everything was staged and orchestrated. The tremendous affection that people have for one another, it really showed through.”

An early highlight of day four was the appearance by Rep. John Lewis, speaking on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. “We’ve come a long way, but we still have a distance to go,” the civil rights leader told the crowd. “We’ve come a long way, but we must march again. On November 4, we must march in every state, in every city, in every village, in every hamlet; we must march to the ballot box. We must march like we have never marched before to elect the next President of the United States Senator Barack Obama.”


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi starts the proceedings


A surprisingly common sentiment


The view from the fifth level


DNC chair Howard Dean


The Minnesota delegation gets down


St. Paul City Council member Melvin Carter III, with his mother Ramsey County Commissioner Toni Carter