The Democratic State Convention

Friday night we arrived in Colorado Springs. It was quite the rush as we raced home from field day, loaded up, made the 90 mile drive. Delegates could do early sign in up until 7pm. By the time we arrived, I had 5 minutes to spare. I whipped through the line in 10 minutes and was good to go for the next morning. I heard had I been about 30 minutes earlier, I would have been in line for a couple of hours. I guess being down to wire has some advantages from time to time.

Saturday morning I arrived at the World Arena around 7:30am. There was a heavy presence of police, although not exactly sure why. I think it was a lot of hype. John & Whit dropped me off and went back to the hotel to swim and lounge around.

I circled around the arena to take my place in a line nearly a mile long, only to find out that it was for the alternates. I then proceeded to a much shorter, fast moving line; how nice! Once inside, hecklers and kiosks showed off their Democratic "wares". For $12, finger puppets featured Bush, Cheney, Rice in a box titled "Axis of Evil". For $4 you could purchase a bumper sticker that said "I believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and an Honest Republican". Needlesss, to say, a conservative Dem like me had no interest in such goods. However, a gentleman carrying iced cold beverages did catch my attention...especially when I said "How much?" and he said "$4.oo" for a 12 ounce drink. WOW!!

I took my seat in the area marked "Jefferson" for the county I reside in. It took awhile to find my floor captain amongst 10,000 plus people, but eventually we caught up. I sat next to some really nice "Hillary" supporters (even though I'm an Obama gal) and I think we all enjoyed each others company.

The day drug on with all the "big whigs" making their speeches and endorsements, a big platform was for Mark Udall as he accepted the nomination for US Senate. Delgate hopefuls for the Nation Convention (held in Denver in Aug.) worked the crowds and solicited fliers asking for our vote.

I decided early on that it mattered not if I was to make it to the nationals. I concluded that I had participated in a civic duty and and was obliged to participate in the voting process, but concluded that I do not eat, drink, breathe this stuff. Some of these folks volunteered 20 hours a day for the last two weeks to make this moment possible and they were the ones who deserved to go to the Nationals.

The day drew to a close around 5pm when the actual voting began to take place. John & Whit picked me up, we headed back to the hotel and there I promptly "crashed".

I awoke a little before 9pm and we ordered a delicious pizza pie! Now there's something Democrats and Republicans can all agree on...agghhh, that's more like it!