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August 26, 2008 —
OK, I could have done without hearing this line from Denver global warming activist Laurie David Sunday night at the Green Sunday at Red Rocks concert kicking off the Democratic National Convention: “Any planet that has Sheryl Crow on it will always be hot.”
She was quoting a college student from one of her global warming bus tours, but still, that quip came with a high cheese factor. However, I will say this, whatever celebs the Republicans manage to trot out at their convention next week in Minneapolis-St. Paul, they will not be as cool as the Dems stable of celeb supporters.
Besides Crow, the Dem’s green love fest Sunday included Sugarland and the Dave Matthews Band. The RNC is reportedly going to lead with the Beach Boys and Sammy Hagar. Crow rocked the house acoustically, bringing the biggest cheers with her appropriately entitled tune, “A Change Will do you Good.”
Seriously, though, the setting, the message, the vibe of the whole place got a week of politics and demonstrations going on a perfect note. Besides the nominations and the big speeches at the Pepsi Center and at Mile High Stadium, the city is hosting hundreds of seminars, roundtables and parties throughout the metro area.
On Tuesday I heard Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, fire up a raucous church full of progressive Democrats, calling on Congress to find former White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove in contempt for ignoring a subpoena investigating Rove’s involvement in Siegelman’s indictment on bribery charges.
Then Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman took the stage with investigative journalist Greg Palast, who was supposed to appear with Robert Kennedy Jr. to promote their latest project, a report on voting irregularities called Steal Back Your Vote. But Kennedy instead was spending time with his uncle, Teddy Kennedy, who was the surprise guest of the first night of the convention.
Pretty good excuse for Kennedy snubbing the Progressive Dems.
1 Comment on "DNC gets off to a rousing start with mix of A-list celebs and progessive politicians"
Larkin — August 26, 2008
Hi Dave,
I just got off the floor of the Pepsi Center for night 2 of the democratic national convention.
I'd like to say there was w whole lotta news news going down, but it was the typical rah-rah Us that you'd expect to hear at a convention.
Couple of interesting things happened behind the scenes. I (embarassingly) work for a FOX news channel so we had Rudolph Giuliani bashing Democrats in the skybox next to us all night. And then strangely enough we had Bill Clinto sitting in the non-Fox sky box on the other side of us to watch his wife speak. I was working, but I believe her speech consisted of her accepting the nomination for the Democratic contender in this election cycle. I could be wrong, it was tough to hear.
The best part was touring the designatd protest zone outside the convention (sarcastically dubbed "freedom cage" by protesters. It is such an enormous pain in the ass to get into I'm not even sure why it was given to the protesters.
Just wanted to let Vail know that Democracy is in fact at work here on the front range, but it is neither pretty nor protestable.
I think I might go to the freedom cage tomorrow to hold my own protest against Drum Circles in general.
Somebody must take a stand.
