Convention Day 1 – part 1

The energy in this place is great. I could feel the excitement from the moment we landed in Denver.

The morning began with a breakfast for the New York Delegation. Among the speakers were Congressman Charles Rangel, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Hillary Clinton.

Patterson, Silver, and Clinton

Senator Clinton was clear that she expects us all to support Barrack Obama and to do all we can to assure his election. I have no doubt that she will release her delegates on Wednesday. I also believe that she is in no way associated with the people whoa re causing any disruption in town. I have been too busy to watch the news or look online, so I am not sure what you all are hearing, but the majority of the protesters in town seem to be either conservative Christians or McSame supporters. Below you can see the riot police with a “Jesus Saves” protester in the background. You can also see that they are gathered near a group of McCain supporters. You can also see the loving message of the fundamentalist Christians painted on their fun wagon. The other side had a mural of an aborted fetus in the “loving hands of god”.

Religious Protestors

I DID almost get caught in the scuffle myself. I was in front of the convention center this afternoon trying to walk past a group of protestors dressed in black and carrying large black flags. They were on my left and 8-10 police officers in full riot gear were to my right. The officers demanded that they put the flags down, but they didn’t oblige. After their second request, the protesters asked what they were doing wrong and the response was barked back “Put the flags on the ground or you’ll be thrown in jail” As the flags were thrown to the ground I literally jumped over them to get out of the way just in time to miss the rest of the exchange. I’m sorry to report that I didn’t stick around long enough to find out the result. It was only later that I realized that I too was dressed in all black and realized that I could have been mistaken for a protester had it not been for the 5 canvas bags of freebies that I was holding over my shoulder. Now THAT would have made for a great blog entry. More soon…