Finally settled in my seat, I pulled out my steno pad and prepared to try and be a journalist. By day I am a network engineer, so my journalistic skills are all ad-hoc. I would be lying if I did not say I was not a little bit intimidated by the masses of professionals to my flanks. I thought for a second and realized that I had a single credential just like them and would one day regret any opportunity missed by not wanting to make an amateur mistake. The speeches started with C list speakers like the Denver mayor of former mayor. My noted were flying fast and furious with each speaker for the first couple of hours.
There was music between every speaker, sometimes live, other times prerecorded. Almost all of the music fit in to the change theme of the night. The press section behaved like a fairly normal press section, with the exception of us rowdy bloggers sprinkled in. Outside our sections there was a party going on. As one analysis I read put it, this looked like an American convention instead of a political convention. There were old and young, black, white, latino and others, white collar and blue collar, straight and gay, everyone was there. It was like they went and picked the first 80,000 folks they could find and drew a beautiful cross-section of America.
August 28 is a specail day in American history. Barack Obama's history making speech was set to occur 45 years to the day when Dr. King gave his "I have a dream" speech in front of 200,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Wrap your head around that for a while and see if you don't get a little choked up, or maybe you had to be there. John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement, spoke for about 10 minutes while parts of the Dr. King speech were played over the P.A.
Will.i.am. came out and performed his viral youtube hit "Yes We Can" to the actual video on the big screen behind the stage. At one point Stevie Wonder made his way to the stage and performed two songs. One I had never heard, the second being "Signed, Sealed, Delivered". The place nearly came unglued during Stevie's performance. Sheryl Crow played a 4 song set at one point. "A change will do you good....", or something like that was the big song that the crowd joined in on.
The atmosphere per the New York Times was part political convention, part Woodstock. After watching the stiff GOP convention this week I get what they were alluding to. Our convention was a celebration of achievements reached, and of the impending change Barack Obama will bring to Washington. I was brought to the point of joyful tears several times before the man even took stage. This was a party like no other.
As day faded to night, the guest list morphed from the C-list to the B-list and finally to the A-list. Bill Richardson gave a spirited speech in front of a nearly packed house, a just reward for his support despite the heat he felt. Governor Kaine of Virgina spoke as well. For this blogger the night revolved around two speeches, Al Gore and Barack Obama.
Coming: Al Gore and Obama speech breakdowns
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