Barack Obama's Acceptance Speech: An Inside Look (adventures)

As you know, the DNC was in Denver all last week and I stopped by 16th St. Mall on the last day to capture history while it was in town::



I was about two blocks away from the MSNBC makeshift studios when I was whisked away by the LightRail to Invesco Field for Barack's acceptance speech that night.


Except the LightRail didn't go ALL the way to the stadium (that stop was closed). So I conveniently waited in a serpent-like line of credential holders about 2 miles long. Everyone of us had our credentials in hand, eagerly awaiting admittance to the best free event ever in the history of Denver.

Met some students from Iowa (where the whole thing started), talked to someone about the conventions of the 60s, passed countless peddlers selling campaign buttons and T-shirts... 2 hours later, I was in! I watched the televised version of the entire evening afterwards, but ya know, it didn't even come close to what it was like inside the stadium, live, in person. People assembled from all over the country, reporters from all over the world. Press boxes from all the major news channels, the top names in Democratic politics, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, Al Gore, oh and me. All in one space! The weather was postcard-Colorado beautiful. Slight breeze, summer evening stillness. And for what it was worth, I had an amazing view::




I took binoculars because I knew everyone would look like dyed Q-tips from that height. I caught sight of Rev. Jesse Jackson, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (and his bolo tie), Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw from NBC, and of course all the politicians (including the now-infamous delegation from Party Town!). As the shades of evening drew on, and as Barack spoke::



Although I was there, the convention on the field still seemed like a world apart. The spectacle and the size of this event was so beyond me that I almost had trouble connecting to it. Although I heard every word of Barack's speech, I still had to work to soak it all in. 84,000 people were there! And almost 40 million Americans watched it on TV. More than the Olympics opening ceremony, more than the Finale of American Idol. And I was there. Still can't believe it.


I do have my critiques though, as far as presentation (hey, it's me!). The fireworks after the speech were tame. The confetti and ticker tape shower were so localized, only above the stage, that it looked ten times bigger and better on TV (it never reached beyond the stage in fact). I LOVE that they handed out American flags to nearly everyone in the stadium (along with Change signs), but they skimped on the larger cloth flags, the ones that require someone to hold and wave it. I saw maybe a dozen in the whole stadium. I saw one guy in the upper stands, though, waving his with such enthusiasm, like a true revolutionary. He made it on the CNN homepage that night!

If the DNC had interspersed a hundred large flags throughout the sections, with volunteers waving them in all their glory, to balance out the ten of thousands of smaller flags, man that would have been a rare sight. I don't know. I can't criticize the DNC committee too much. I just keep thinking of that Claude Monet painting of the French flags in ridiculous abundance on a Parisian street, full of people celebrating a French exposition of something::



I guess after that night at Invesco Field, I have a newfound reverence for the American flag and what it represents. I wonder (to quote Michael Phelps) how "at a loss of words" some Americans would be if you asked them what their flag meant to them. Would it even be an instantaneous response for them? Or would they have to think about it for a second, because they really don't have to on a daily basis?

I stayed for a while to check out the Press boxes::


I sat in the horse's mouth way up there, what a view! Katie Couric is somehwere in that herd of people. For the most part, the press was so done with the DNC, ready for Round 2 of political coverage with the RNC in St. Paul, MN, next week.

I'm excited to see what the Republicans have to say (or not say), especially in the midst of oncoming Hurricane Gustav at the other end of the Mississippi River (online telethon, anyone? seriously, they're thinking about doing that). But I'll tell you one thing: the GOP will have to try pretty hard to top what I saw at Invesco Field!