As chronicled here and here, my family and I had essentially given up on getting tickets for Barack Obama's August 28 Invesco Field at Mile High acceptance speech despite having registered for them within minutes of the press conference announcing their availability. But then, unexpectedly, my wife received an e-mail telling her she'd been awarded community credentials. Judging by an online comment I received, which is reproduced below, such a note was apparently no guarantee of good news. But in our case, the situation worked out very well, albeit very weirdly.
My wife went to the designated office, in a Golden-area strip mall, and found a very modest operation -- a couple of people sitting at computers, processing small lines of hopefuls. Moments later, when her turn came, she glanced down at the list from which a volunteer campaign staffer was working and saw my name directly beneath hers.
First either of us heard of it. I never received any confirmation from the Democratic National Convention Committee, the Obama campaign or anyone else that I'd ever applied for tickets, even though I did so twice -- once at a website that preceded the press conference and again at the one that had been newly launched. And I certainly hadn't gotten an e-mail telling me I'd been granted community credentials. The volunteers seemed puzzled by that, and no wonder, since I am, too.
At any rate, my wife asked if she could pick up my tickets for me. Given that DNCC head Leah Daughtry had made such a point of stressing security at the aforementioned press get-together, the answer probably should have been "no." Instead, the volunteers consulted and promptly decided that was just fine -- and when my wife offered to let them look over my insurance card to prove we were indeed married, they told her that wasn't necessary. (She showed it to them anyway, for her own peace of mind, if not theirs.) Minutes later, she walked out with four tickets to the upper-north section of Mile High -- enough so that both my twin daughters can attend, thereby saving us from having to make some kind of Solomonic choice about who'd have to stay home on the big night.
One more thing: After my wife called to tell me about getting tickets for me as well as for her, I received my first ticket-related e-mail from the DNCC. Assuming the belated confirmation had finally arrived, I opened it to discover a generic message encouraging me to host an Obama-speech viewing party.
Sorry, but I'm booked that night.
The comment I mentioned appears below. -- Michael Roberts
Liz Monsma says:
I got the very same email! And when I stopped by the address shown on the email this afternoon ready to pick up my Community Credential, there was nothing and no one to be found, except two other people like me driving around trying to find our "golden tickets."
One of the women I ran into assumed it was a spam email, which I guess it maybe was...
