Denver, Day Minus One

We are at the Democratic Convention where we are credentialed as "parents"--we even have ID badges which say "I belong to Theo LeCompte" with his picture to wear around our necks. I have every intention of blogging daily but it's an exhausting process to participate in so bear with me.

Yesterday we were greeted at a parents' brunch by the CEO of the Convention, Leah Daughtry, and Howard Dean, attended the opening of a show of African art (courtesy of someone I met on the plane) and had a late dinner with an exhausted and very hungry Theo. Today we get our official credentials for the convention--these have to be picked up every day, presumably so you can be excluded if you misbehave, and we also get a tour of the Convention Center. Tomorrrow we tour the Pepsi Center, where the actual convention is and Wednesday (when the voting happens) we have passes for the "CNN Cafe", where we can have free hamburgers and presumably chat up Wolf Blitzer.

Dean was wonderful. He talked about polling data showing a marked shift in the way people under 35 think about themselves, the world, and politics. He described the marked increase in turnout in younger voters in the past two elections and pointed out that the Democratic Party "looks like America" while our opponents don't. He noted that, from the beginning, Obama has been the candidate of the "new generation"--and warned us that this is a transformative election, genuinely about change, and that change is hard. I came away more hopeful about the election than I have been in a while--the summer has been wearing, particularly given the strange tendency of the press to be uncritical of McCain. (Good op ed piece on that here in yesterday's New York Times).

Perhaps the most entertaining bit so far comes from the fact that the protest gathering area lies between us and the downtown business area. There seemed to be a rich mix of issues--Ralph Nader, world peace, impeaching Bush. It was lively and fun; I heard one protester my age dreamily remembering protesting "the Cambodian War", apparently a high point of her youth.

I trust there will be more of this tomorrow.