That’s Pat Buchanan on the lower level of MSNBC’s Election Express. I arrived at MSNBC’s Democratic National Convention headquarters about midway through the roll call of votes that finally resulted in the formal nomination of Barack Obama as the Dems’ presidential standard-bearer. Speakers amplified the voices of co-hosts Chris Matthews…
Choo choo. MSNBC’s headquarters for the Democratic National Convention can be found behind Union Station, which may explain why it looks disturbingly like part of Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. During the first Denver taping of The Daily Show during convention week, host Jon Stewart ridiculed the net for leaving…
Hello, you must be going. When we stopped by the visitor’s bureau booth in Pavilion 3 outside the Pepsi Center yesterday — chips, beer and hits of oxygen! — the conversation turned to an e-mail that several Denver bold names had received that day, a painful slap in the face…
Slide show Anyone who’s cruised the streets of the Denver this week has encountered a slew of Barack Obama-inspired T-shirts, both on sale racks and on bodies. Here are 20 we’ve seen, ranked from worst to best on a scale of 1-10 Obamas. Get’em while they last! Or don’t!…
Slide show This week’s Westword features a cover story by Jessica Centers about Mike Johnston, principal at Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton and one of Obama’s education advisers. For photos of Johnston, his students and teachers, see Mark Manger’s slide show. And read on for the text…
Of all the rare birds gathered on the mall for the DNC, the Stop Bird Porn people may just be the strangest quacks out there. And while those are two brilliant, brilliant fucking bird puns I just hit you with, the fact remains, what the shit, man? I’ve yet to…
Jesus, why didn’t I think of this sooner? I mean, I know those floor passes are hard to get, but still… Thanks to my anonymous poster from gayzetteblog.com for the heads up. A quick scan of the craigslist personals proves that this isn’t the only guy looking to get a…
Cindy Adams. The Democratic National Convention in Denver. Denver’s a cow town. Doesn’t mean what we’re going to see here is the milk of human kindness. Means like what’s coming is a large load of bull. Having covered these rah-rah sis-boom-bah hoo-has since Lincoln’s day, I tell you Denver’s a…
The delegate from the great state of Vermont now has the floor. As you may have noticed, this DNC thing is all about drinking and free stuff. The open bars at some delegate-friendly hotels start serving Bloody Marys at 10:30 a.m., and the Dems can hardly sneeze without stumbling on…
Still haven’t managed to wrangle yourself a floor pass for the Pepsi Center? Then the next best place for celebrity spotting is turning out to be Jesse Morreale’s Rockbar, renamed Barackbar for the festivities. (It’s located at 3015 East Colfax Avenue, on the ground floor of the All-Inn Hotel). Last…
UPDATES BELOW: With photos from Rage and the Flobots. Oh yeah, and the cops have the place surrounded. It’s just after 11 a.m. and things are just getting underway at the Denver Coliseum. State Radio just took the stage and is in the midst of playing an energetic set in…
A lot’s been said, here and everywhere, about Democratic National Convention protests, parties and politics. But in the meantime, who’s minding the art? Never mind the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs’s Dialog:City offerings that have been unfolding around town since Monday, or the dozens of DNC-inspired shows at local galleries:…
Vote Satan-Angel. Once Clinton left the Pepsi Center stage, Jin Ho Kang and Yoougsook Kang, a pair of reverends from Aurora, delivered the closing prayer and the proceedings were promptly gaveled to a close for the night — at which point the band launched into Sly & the Family Stone’s…
Our man on the scene — OK, he stumbled on the scene on his way to get a beer — reports that a large group of delegates just ambled past the protesers’ cage, where exactly four activists were holding things down. Their message to the passing delegates (none of whom,…
Big mother. At last, the night’s big moment: Hillary Clinton’s unity speech, which was meant to convince supporters thinking about bailing to John McCain to throw their support behind Barack Obama despite the Democratic candidates’ bitter primary battle. The man in front of me, from the Connecticut delegation, was clearly…
At last, they’ve finally come together — in the trash bin…
Signs of the times. After a roof-raising speech by Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, whose charm and effectiveness undoubtedly reenforced his reputation as a rising Democratic star, the Pepsi Center’s lights dimmed for a Hillary Clinton tribute video — an odd mix of elements that featured two clips from Saturday Night…
My spot. It took me part of former Virginia governor Mark Warner’s keynote speech, all of the talk by Ohio governor Ted Strickland and the opening section of the address by Massachusett’s governor Deval Patrick to reach the opposite side of the Pepsi Center from where I started — directly…
That blur in the middle of the screen is Katie Couric. As those of us in the (barely) moving mosh pit inched our way around the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night, we passed by broadcast platforms populated by network heavyweights. My photos of the CNN crew — Wolf Blitzer included…
Welcome to the Thunderdome, bitch. When I hit the Pepsi Center floor, former Virgnia governor Mark Warner was delivering the Democratic National Convention keynote address — not that I or anyone else around me registered one word of it. There were far too many bodies in a too-small space, and…
The press minions tapping away. Once I finally made it into the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening, I was directed toward section 106 — press row. The area has a couple of significant advantages over other spots in the arena. For one thing, it has power — the electrical kind,…
The buses arrive — at last. When it became clear that many of the people gathered outside the Pepsi Center on Tuesday evening might not make it inside in time for Hillary Clinton’s big speech, Democratic National Convention personnel decided to allow anyone present who wasn’t carrying oversized media equipment…
