DNC

Forty five years to the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, Barack Obama delivered the performance of his life before 84,000 fervent supporters at Invesco Field at Mile High stadium in Denver. Whether Obama ultimately becomes President of the United States, it will undoubtedly be a speech and a spectacle that will go down in history.

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 [...]

Following a circuitous, 45-minute bus ride — in which our driver inexplicably drove all the way up to the stadium, circled back to downtown Denver and then proceeded anew to the stadium — I am on the ground at Mile High. The setting is indeed spectacular. The stadium is lined with digital signs that read [...]

I just took the light rail into downtown Denver. People are already heading in droves to Invesco Field at Mile High for this evening’s big event. That means they’ll be sitting in the sun for five hours or more before the festivities get underway. Hopefully there will plenty of water on hand. It’s a beautiful [...]

In this edition of the Schultz Report audiocast–and we’ll have another tomorrow, after Barack Obama’s Democratic convention-closing speech in Denver tonight–we examine developments at this week’s DNC. Hamline University political science prof and Minnesota politics analyst David Schultz gives the Democrats mixed grades for their handling of the party’s quadrennial infomercial. “The convention in some [...]

Overheard in the hallway of the Sheraton Four Points this morning: Rep. Tim Walz on his way into breakfast discussing Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s VP prospects with an unidentified woman. “I think he has a good chance,” says the woman. “Let’s hope so,” replies Walz, frequently mentioned as a possible gubernatorial contender in 2010. “That’s good [...]

Spencer Ackerman of our sister site the Washington Independent argues that Barack Obama’s national security advisers and the policies they advocate are a far cry from the failed Kerry strategy of 2004:
“When the Democrats talk tonight about national security, 2004 will appear like a long-forgotten, sepia-toned era. The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) represents [...]

I spent the evening in the scrum of the floor. Strangely it’s not the best vantage point from which to come up with a coherent analysis of the evening. Did Bill Clinton stick a shiv in Barack Obama or anoint him the next black president? Did Joe Biden’s tale of growing up a stuttering outsider in Scranton, Pennsylvania come off as hokum or populist humility? You’re so close to the action that it’s difficult to determine. And the true believers in the Pepsi Center treat every uttered word as if it came directly from God. So I offer up instead a gallery of photos from the evening.

The Democratic National Committee is coming to the Republican National Convention — or at least, across the street. Hoping to keep a post-DNC bump, the party is setting up a media office across from the Xcel Energy Center to serve as a rapid-response center for countering whatever goes on inside. The “More of the Same” center — to be accessible via www.justmoreofthesame.com — will host media spokespeople, two dozen fact-checkers (who’ll fisk every GOP speech) and a satellite truck to transit interviews anywhere in the world.