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Just after 5:00 pm Pacific time, Nancy Pelosi has called the convention to order—even in this atmosphere of festive disorder. A few minutes into her speech, she is clearly in the role of attack dog, and going after John McCain. “John McCain is Wrong,” she has the crowd chanting in unison.

The “John McCain is Wrong” part reminds me of that “priceless” McCain speech with the green backdrop. You remember that one…where McCain kept saying “And that’s not change we can believe in,” followed by a sheepish grin and a nasally, McGooish laugh. The difference here is that nobody is sheepish (but they are all grins). There is nothing but enthusiasm and, dare I say it, unity. Yes, I know, there is supposed to be disunity, especially among the Washington delegation (with whom I am sitting). While I ‘m sure there are some bitterly disappointed Clinton supporters around, there is most certainly a unity of feeling at the convention that America cannot afford a McCain presidency.

[via here]

The view from the Washington state delegation section at the Pepsi Center.

Via Think Progress:

On Fox and Friends today, host Brian Kilmeade acknowledged that Jenkins was intentionally instigating the crowd. At the end of the segment, Kilmeade signed off by saying that Fox was “going to continue to send” Jenkins “out to cause trouble.” “I hope so,” responded Jenkins. Watch it:

I’m sure it would be mighty tempting to start yelling at the Fox Noise crew, but the best thing to do is probably to turn around and walk away. Just ignore these unethical right wing twits and don’t give them anything to talk about. Just my $0.02.

Except, of course, if they have Hooters Girls and Broncos cheerleaders with them.

Yes, last night, I slept with The Stranger’s Annie Wagner.  And so did Darryl.

I’m not sure if Annie slept much, what with us two old men snoring away (especially Darryl), but that’s the price she pays for begging a spot on our floor last night so that she could be up and alert bright and early this morning at the Washington State Clinton delegate caucus here at the hotel.

Annie and I are now at the delegate caucus, witnessing the fireworks first hand.  You can tell the Clinton delegates are angry and irreconcilable, threatening to be “respectful” and “pragmatic,” and warning that they might even “play by the rules,” or even worse, “honor the decision of the majority of Democrats.”

Okay, there’s still a bit of grieving going on, with the main topic of conversation surrounding whether to vote for Clinton or Obama on the first ballot, and whether Clinton has actually “released” her delegates, and if so, what exactly that means? Most of the folks here want to cast their vote for Clinton… but there’s also a lot of talk about respecting her wishes, even if that means voting for Obama.

There’s also a little push back to the “disunity” theme that has dominated recent media coverage.  As one delegate put it:

“Why is it disunity for us to do our job voting for the candidate we were sent here to vote for?”

I’m not sure it is.  This is, after all, the Democratic Party, which as we know implies a degree of creative chaos.  It takes a lot of passion and effort to get to a national covention as a delegate (as opposed to getting here as a blogger, which apparently only takes a firm grasp of four-letter words), so you’d expect the Clinton delegates to be passionate supporters of their candidate.  But they’re also Democrats, and while I plan to talk with as many delegates one on one as I can, it seems clear that the number one concern of the folks in this room is to get a Democrat into the White House.

So if my colleagues in the press are looking for a good “disunity” story, I don’t think they’ll find one in the WA delegation.  No doubt there are some unhappy folks in the room, but there is also a concerted effort to get everybody in line behind “the second best Democrat.”

UPDATE:
The conversation has moved on to the illicit topic of “credential swapping,” where Paul Berendt is teaching the newbies the fine art of deceit.  As for me, my act of disunity for the day will be to smuggle a piece of fruit into the Pepsi Center, one of the many banned items.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
Well, the caucus goes on, and we’re in the middle of a passionate speech by a delegate clearly fearful that there will be a push for a vote by acclamation, and angry at efforts to get him to change his vote.  As another delegate just put it, there’s nothing to be gained from “forced unity.”  So while I don’t think there is much of a disunity story here, don’t expect anywhere near a unanimous vote from the WA delegation.  But I haven’t heard anybody say they’ll be voting for McCain in November.  (Well… one delegate said it, but it was a slip, and she quickly corrected herself.)

After all the hype about violence in Denver, the provocative name of one of the protest coalitions (“Recreate ’68”) proved oddly prophetic, as slightly more than 68 people actually showed up for Sunday’s anti-war protests. Along with countless cops from numerous jurisdictions. The few hundred protesters, lacking a real place to convene (the “free speech zone,” once it was found in an area with one entrance and enclosed on three sides, turned out to be about 30′ x 30′ and was filled with counter-protesters; by contrast, the area set aside for law enforcement to process arrested protesters was several acres), simply marched around downtown and occasionally did random blockades of streets.

That’ll bring the war machine to its knees.

Not sure whether the pathetic turnout (hyperventilating coverage by Fox and local Denver media notwithstanding) is a reflection of bad organizing, the generally rudderless state of the anti-war movement, or people being scared away by police and media hype. (Tentative answer: yes.) Locals seem much more involved in organizing the immigrant march on Thursday, though the threat of police harassment could certainly keep a lot of those folks away, too. Regardless, even though disgust with Obama, Biden, and especially the Democratic Congress of the last two years is nearly universal among anti-war activists, most delegates hobnobbing in the various downtown hotels today had no idea protests were underway. The ones that did know were usually clueless about why people might be protesting — other than that somebody’s always protesting something. If first impressions are any guide (and they might not be), many of the attendees here, both the pols and the rank and file, seem blissfully unaware of just how much contempt they’re held in by folks who really, really wanted to believe the Democratic promises of 2006.

Instead, it’s been business as usual.

Which brings us to the swag.

Like any trade convention, attendees get canvas bags with lots of free gifts of dubious value. In this case, lots and lots of them. All, of course, provided by corporations (most of them big) and the occasional union, all hoping to buy a favorable impression.

If the Democratic Party’s standard bearer has vowed to turn his back on lobbyist business as usual in government (which is the rumor), someone organizing this convention never got the memo. Sponsorships are everywhere. Thanks to various loopholes in campaign finances laws, the parties and hospitality suites, all paid for by generous benefactors, are more elaborate than ever.

(One example of very, very many: the Washington state delegation is hosting four “Breakfast Meetings” on Monday through Thursday. They are sponsored by, in order, Amgen, Merck, Qwest, and Eli Lilly. Multiply that by fifty state delegations — plus D.C. and the territories — and every suite in several dozen upscale hotels, and one begins to appreciate why we don’t have any real movement toward universal health care, and why the Democrats caved on telecom immunity. Among many other things.)

In the absence of actual news, so far most of the media coverage seems to be media interviewing other media, and that includes the blogger tent (“The Big Tent”), which opened today. The DNCC does deserve credit for recognizing bloggers and setting up a special program for blogger access to the convention; the Republican convention in St. Paul next week has nothing similar. But at first glance — and bearing in mind that many of the Big Tent people had just seen each other in Austin — the whole exercise seemed just as incestuous as the MSM we endlessly criticize. Only, well, not as richly compensated. For all of the vaunted independence and orneriness of the blogosphere, so far not many people seem willing to be a skunk at the party. Or, you know, exercise critical judgment.

Most of that will happen outside the convention proper. For example, the Progressive Democrats of America are hosting symposia all week that look to be promising. (In a church, nearly two miles from the Pepsi Center.) But inside the convention, the one serious possibility of conflict, the Hillary fanatics (aka “PUMAs”) that have been openly fantasizing about disrupting the convention in various ways, is all about cult of personality and entitlement, not about any substantive differences to speak of on issues between Obama and Clinton. Sure, there will be the usual tussles over wording of the party platform that nobody reads. But you’d really never know that some polls recently have put favorable ratings for the Democratic-led Congress in the single digits, and that said rating among self-identified Democrats is worse than among Republicans.

Plenty of interesting things will undoubtably happen behind the scenes. But don’t expect any serious expression in Denver of the anger of many in the public over two years of failed congressional Democratic promises to reverse the disaster that has been George Bush (or even to try very hard) — not from delegates, not from media, and not even, apparently, from well-organized public protests.

Today’s podcast from the Democratic Convention is something of a blogger- covering-the-media-covering-a-blogger- covering-the-media report.

I taped Cameron Gray, co-host of the POTUS 08 show on XM channel 130, interviewing our own Goldy. The interview will air sometime Monday morning on POTUS 08.

Apparently you can get XM channel 130 without a subscription, but a subscription is needed for the online feed. Go figure.

Horses Ass readers can listen to the full interview right here:

[audio:http://podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/denver2_24_aug_2008.mp3]

[Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

En route to the Democratic convention Goldy and I ran into former Washington state Democratic Party Chair Paul Berendt and The Stranger Eli Sanders in the airport waiting area. I asked Paul for a quick take on Sen. Obama’s selection of Sen. Biden for VP. Unfortunately I screwed up the recording, so my brief summary will have to do: Berendt is a Clinton supporter and he would have liked to see Clinton as the VP. But, given that she isn’t, he was happy with the choice of Biden.

Somewhere over Utah, at around 40,000 feet, I found Mr. Sanders and asked him the same question. He offered the following insights:

[audio:http://podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/denver1_23_aug_2008.mp3]

[Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

I’m sitting on the airplane listening to Everclear on my iPhone (though isn’t “Volvo Driving Soccer Mom” the official theme song of the Republican convention?), and wondering what the he’ll I’m going to do once I get to Denver? Blog, I guess.

Anyway, expect a lot of short posts this week, some with pix, as I blog directly from my iPhone. Longer posts will have to wait until I have WIFI access, and a little time.

(In the cab now; time to post.)

Darryl and I are off to Denver, and look who we found at the airport. Now I feel like real press. (That is, asuming The Stranger is real press.)

Well, that’s a relief.  The best thing Bayh and Kaine had going for them was geography, but they were both way too conservative for my taste, while Biden’s experience  adds a nice balance to the ticket that I think most voters will find comforting.  Obama didn’t play games; he picked a VP undoubtedly qualified to be president, and I think that says something about Obama.

Here are a couple of micro-documentaries on the lives of the rich and famous:

(Who needs Saturday morning cartoons? There are links to some eighty other media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

It turns out, McCain doesn’t know what kind of car he drives either:

In our News interview, he was asked what kind of car he drove. As with Politico’s question about home ownership, he didn’t know and had to ask a nearby aide. “A Cadillac CTS,” she told him.

But then again, he is 72, so cut him some slack.