Will.i.am and John Legend perform “Yes We Can”

For security reasons, I chose not to bring my iPod with me anywhere. To compensate for this self-imposed lack of tunes, I paid more attention to the songs played at the various events, mainly between speakers and underneath the announcer’s voice (who I swear announces for the Oscars). Below is the list of songs I heard that I can remember or that I consciously paid attention to. It also includes a few of the songs performed lives at both the Pepsi Center and Invesco field as well as my own additions that I feel are appropriate to the event. I do realize the rumor has it that there is an official CD of DNC ’08 music coming out soon, but this will have to do for now.

1) “Love Train” – The O’Jays {Played when Obama officially won the nomination Wed. night}
2) “Move on Up” – Curtis Mayfield {Invesco}
3) “Chain of Fools” – Aretha Franklin {Played when Bill Clinton walked on stage to give his speech Wed. night}
4) “Signed, Sealed and Delivered” – Stevie Wonder {Performed live by Stevie Wonder at Invesco Field}
5) “Yes We Can” – Will.i.am and John Legend {Performed live at Invesco Field}
6) “City of Blinding Lights” – U2 {Played when Joe Biden came out for his speech Wed. night}
7) “Shining Star” – Earth, Wind and Fire {Pepsi Center}
8 ) “Born in the USA” – Bruce Springsteen {Played before and after Obama’s speech at Invesco}
9) “Move Along” – The All American Rejects {Invesco}
10) “A Change Would Do You Good” – Sheryl Crow {Performed live at Invesco}
11) “This Love” – Maroon 5 {Pepsi Center}
12) “Eye of the Tiger” – Survivor {Played when a string of Admirals and Generals came on stage at the Pepsi Center}
13) “Come to My Window” – Melissa Etheridge {Performed live at the Pepsi Center}
14) “Same Thing” – Flobots {Headliners at the Tent Music Festival in Downtown Denver for the week}
15) “Guerilla Radio” – Rage Against the Machine {Headliners at the Tent Music Festival}
16) “Baditude” – David Spoon, Paul Harris and Obernik {Not really a DNC song, but I think it’s a wicked concept to describe Democrats}

I have 15 min left of my internet time so I have to keep this brief until tonight. But Invesco field was absolutely fantastic though also absolutely chaotic. You can read some of my thoughts over at MiddBlog.

Invesco wasn’t all we did yesterday, though. We spent the morning at a panel discussion by the People For the American Way about the future of the Supreme Court (more on that later as well). And then we (we being my mom and her friend Cathy) spent the afternoon in the peace and silence of the Denver Art Museum.

Getting to Invesco required first driving to the Pepsi Center, going through a credential check and then taking a bus to Invesco Field where we went through about a half an hour of waiting in line for security (for some, it was almost four hours).

My initial thoughts on Obama’s speech? Absolutley fantastic. He was pragmatic and practical. He seemed very presidential. I happen to prefer he’s speech style when he’s really desperate, but he’s not desperate anymore. And, last night was probably the first time a majority of America was watching Obama and they don’t want to see somone who’s desperate. I thought he addressed every topic, smartly choosing the economy first. He responded to every personal attach thrown at him. He even address controversial issues like abortion and gay marriage. Tom Daschle, at breakfast yesterday morning, called the overall convention a “Life Moment” and I thought Obama’s speech cemented last night as a life moment for everyone.

So now you tell me, am I right or wrong? Was Obama amazing or not?

(Stay tuned for commentary and photos, but now I have to go.)

I may be 20 years old but the significance of what happened today was not lost on me. I mean, I walked from a panel on how we’re going to reform the American Healthcare system in the next couple of months onto the convention floor where we nominated, for the first time, an African American for president. I cannot begin to define the feeling on the floor when that nomination was completed. I have no doubt that the feeling would have been just as profound if it had been Hillary nominated today, but a milestone was accomplished today and a barrier was broken. I have just two words for that (and forgive my language): holy shit.

I described over at MiddBlog what it felt like as the roll call was taken today. I just want to reiterate, however, that it was incredibly emotional for everyone and it set the tone for the rest of the evening. The heightened emotion left people more excited, more eager and more open to coming together. (Even Joe Biden had teared on his eyes when he walked on stage.)

It’s funny, when you’re actually on the convention floor, you don’t actually pay attention to the speeches (except for Biden’s), not because they’re not interesting but because there’s so much going on. For example, I got pictures of all of the Congressmen from Vermont, of Luke Russert (he smiled at me!), and a few minor celebrities. And, AND, the big news of the night, Susan Sarandon sat with our delegation. She was an absolute delight and George McGovern loved being able to flirt with her. In fact, it was poetic justice this afternoon. I’ve mentioned before that SD has crap seats on the floor and gets no attention. However, at about 6:00 tonight, Susan Sarandon, Josh Harkin, George McGovern and Stephanie Herseth all arrived at our location AND Tom Daschle was on stage. Thus, for 15 minutes all eyes were on SD. I tell ya, when it rains it pours.

Like I said, it’s difficult to pay attention to all of the speeches and I plan on going back to YouTube as soon as I have some time to re-watch them. I did get into the habit, however, of reading the teleprompters. Bill Clinton used the teleprompter the least, Chet Edwards the most, and Biden deviated the most from his script. I suppose that itself provides some very interesting insight into what type of politician each man is. Naturally, the teleprompter was OFF for Barack Obama’s “surprise” visit and it was completely unscripted.

There are a million more things I could say about being on the floor today (I was there for 5+ hours and time just flew by), however, I want to get to the after party before I go to bed. It was hosted at a Mexican-Japanese fusion food restaurant by the same guys who took some of us to dinner last night. Vonda Shepard, of Ally McBeal and Gullickson household kitchen clean-up time fame, was the entertainment for the evening. I got the feeling that the majority of the delegation was intimidated at first by the sophistication of the event. That issue was of course remedied quickly by the endless supply of mojitos for the guests. Hell, if only we’d known Tuesday morning that all it took was a couple of mojitos, we all would have gotten along so much better from Day 1. Oh well, next time I guess.

I spent my morning today at a healthcare panel called “Winning Healthcare Reform in 2009″ hosted/moderated by the SEIU’s Andy Stern and Ron Pollack from Families USA. I was thrilled to get to hear Stern speak after reading so much about him and talking so much about his decision to endorse Obama in various discussion groups on campus. He proved to be very exuberant and very much an Obama supporter; however, he failed to lay out what he felt needed to be done to make healthcare universal and affordable. Nevertheless, I admire his pledge to make sure some accomplishment in this area is made in the next president’s/Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office.

What was most surprising about this panel discussion, which had about 200 attendees, was that nearly everyone on the “invited” list in the program showed up. The panelists that came included

-Gov. Kathleen Sibelius
-Representative John Dingell
-Gov. Deval Patrick
-Gov. Ted Strickland
-Gov. Ed Rendell
-Representative Hilda Solis
-Tom Daschle
-And with a surprise finale by Hillary Clinton.

Each panelist addressed various aspects of our current failed healthcare situation, from inefficiency to unions to children. Some, such as Stickland and Patrick and, to some extent, Sibelius, were able to talk about what has worked in their own states. The only two people who laid out definitive steps that need to be started tomorrow where Daschle and Clinton. In fact, their ideas were so similar that it gave the impression that Daschle was covering for the fact that Clinton maybe wasn’t going to show up.

Their steps included destroying the myths about the current healthcare system in America (which is not as fabulous as we pretend it is), that we need to modernize the system, that we need to end rationing, that we need to make the system more transparent and that we need to stay on the offensive (that was my favorite point). I won’t go into an analysis of all of the talking points here, but I will say this, the common thread between all the speakers was that the biggest obstacle in the last decade to accomplish anything related to healthcare has been the president. Thus, all the panelists asked the attendees to pledge to do everything they could to elect not only Barack Obama, but as many Democrats as possible so that some of the major obstacles to a reformed healthcare system are no longer present.

Well, the rest of Day 2 proved to be much less confrontational than the first 4 hours, though that may be mostly due to the fact that I avoided the SD delegation for most of the day.

I spent my afternoon at the Hispanic Insitute’s forum entitled “Culture Wars: The role of race, gender, ethnicity, religion and values in the fall campaign” (say that ten times fast). I’m so glad I went to this discussion. It was moderated by MSNBC’s Dan Abrams and other panelists included

-Gov. Bill Richardson
-Harold Ford, Jr. (DLC Chairman and frequent MSNBC guest)
-Tucker Carlson (MSNBC)
-Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
-Richard Wolffe (Newsweek)
-Faye Wattleton (Director of the Center for Women’s Advancement)
-Dee Dee Myers (worked with the Clinton Administration, sister to Betsy Myers who came to Midd this Spring)
-Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
-Markos Moulisas (Founder of Daily Kos)

The panel, unfortunatly, did not address most of the issues proposed in its title, but there was certainly no lack of intelligent discussion and food for though. I won’t go into some of the issues now because I could discuss them all day but I did come away with these few conclusions. A) That race was more a positive to Obama than gender was to Hillary, B) That current issues voters have with Obama are more about class than race and finally C) That the idea of “values” has switched from what’s right for one to do personally to what’s right for one to do for their children. I would also add to this that, McCain’s recent use of Hillary in campaign adds will likely do the Democratic Party a favor because there are countless Hillary supporters who, when actually paired with McCain, will realized the absurdity of it all.

After the panel, I headed over to the Pepsi Center on my own just to get the lay of the land. I found South Dakota’s crap seats (which are actually almost directly behind Vermont’s) and just sat for a while and took it all in. I did actually get a chance to see Kucinich speak, which is always an interesting affair.

For dinner, I went with my mom and a few others from the delegation to dinner with a client of my dad’s and his colleagues. Dinner was nearly four courses and was fabulous. And, if finished just in time for Jack Billion and I to get his driver to take us back to the Pepsi Center for Hillary’s big speech. We almost didn’t get in, which would have been a bummer, because the Fire Marhsall closed the Convention Floor down. Jack, all angelic like, just stood in front of access control and managed to convince some old guy that we were important delegates and had seats waiting for us (which was more or less true). However, we were nowhere near the SD delegation so we had to hop a few rows, which is always a good idea in high heels.

Day 2 is barely underway and already the storm has reached tropical storm proportions. The WordPress connection is hit or miss this morning and I’m leaving for lunch soon so I won’t go into much detail now. However, I will say this: no one is getting along. What has struck me the most this morning is how little people understand the system. Few understand the system for getting credentials and even fewer understand how the voting will actually take place.

Making matters worse is Hillary’s ambiguous position on what her delegates are supposed to do. The delegations are supposed to vote tomorrow morning and yet Hillary isn’t supposedly going to release her delegates until tomorrow afternoon. This means that a) the Hillary supporters are pissed and confused (always a great combination) and that b) the Obama campaign sees no value in the SD delegation (and why would they?).

The theme of the Convention is supposed to be unity and so far, I don’t see it, at least not on the ground level. Granted, I haven’t been to the Pepsi Center yet so I couldn’t tell you what the overall atmosphere is. One good thing: even with all of their infighting and bickering and windblowing, no one in the delegation has threatened to vote for McCain. At least we can all agree that we’re Democrats.

I scored credentials today so I’ll have photos from the floor later tonight. (Pay attention to my Twitter feed on the side for random updates throughout the day though.) Also on tap for today is a talk by the Hispanic Insitute with guests Bill Richardson and Dan Abrahms, dinner with CNN’s Bill Press and other lawyers and lobbyists, and then Hillary’s speech. Oh it’s going to be one hell of a day.

PS: There really was chocolate cake last night, with espresso. Guess who didn’t get any sleep last night? Though that may have been the quadruple Americano I had at 10PM.

Well, Day 1 of the Convention ’08 is over. There’s not a whole lot to report at this point. I didn’t make it onto the Convention Floor today (I arrived to late to nab some credentials), but I can already sense that promises for an interesting and dramatic convention will not go unfulfilled. Reports coming from the other SD Delegates from the floor tonight were that Kennedy was incredibly moving and Michelle was in rare form. I have only seen snippets of their speeches on TV since we got back to the hotel, but once I see longer clips, I’m sure I’ll have some comments.

As the week goes along, there are several aspects of the convention that will be interesting to watch unfold. First of all, SD went for Hillary, not Obama and, from what I can tell, the delegation is very much undecided (unanimously, at least) on what to do. Second, SD is an incredibly small state. We may have some important people (Daschle and McGovern), but we still get walked all over. Several of us from the delegation got knocked off the VIP list for the “Sex, Politics and Cocktails” Planned Parenthood dance party to make room for bigger states and more important people (even though SD is the primary abortion battleground right now). Instead, I bummed around downtown Denver with my mother, the executive director of the State Democratic Party and his wife, and an Obama delegate looking for chocolate cake. Thirdly, it will be interesting to see just what my job as a page is. And finally, security is tiiiight. I mean, from what it sounds like, there is security for security for security to get onto the convention floor. This could stifle my live-blogging capabilities for the week, but, we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, it’s off to bed now. I have a delegation meeting in just a few hours and I desperately need sleep. I’m 90% certain I will be on the Convention floor tomorrow so there are many more pictures and reports to come.