Day 0: Travel to Denver -- Sunday, August 24

For more pictures of the day's events and political celebrities, please click here or go to www.nancysnewsnetwork.blogspot.com.

9:45 am: Boarded American Airlines flight 327 for Dallas en route to Denver. Wearing my tiny discreet "Women for Obama" button -- but it feels like everyone around me must be able to read my excitement at finally being on the road for the DNC.

Before checking my bags, a member of the ground-crew staff asks my destination. I blurt out, "Denver: I'm going to the convention!" (What she really needed to know was Dallas, my first destination.) She smiled and indulged me anyway.

5:45 pm After a largely uneventful couple of flights book-ending a long-ish layover in Dallas, I arrive in Denver. Whisked away efficiently by a SuperShuttle, I check into the Renaissance Denver Hotel in Stapleton, which is billeting the Massachusetts and Maryland delegations. The hotel is abuzz with people -- it must be a sellout week all over town. The first thing I see when I walk in the door is a big banner, "Massachusetts Democratic Party," where a tableful of staffers are checking people in and providing useful information. Before I have a chance to check things out, I hear my name called and state committee member Kathy Pasquina is embracing and welcoming me. (Kathy and 1st Essex-Middlesex publicity liaison Nancy Weinberg arrived on Friday.) Kathy re-introduces me to Joe Kaplan, another state committee member whom I had met the evening of our platform discussion in Boxford. (As a member of the national Platform Committee, Joe came to observe, listen and participate in our discussion.)

Tonight there will be welcome receptions by Senator Kerry for our state delegation, and afterward an Ice Cream Social sponsored by both Massachusetts and Maryland delegations. So far, the convention seems like one big party.

6:15 pm Just officially "checked in" with the state party at the lobby registration area. Advice, friendly faces, and a gift bag awaited. Still not sure how possible it will be to bring my laptop with me into the convention building itself; blogging will be a bit of an adventure. At least the hotel room is set up with free wi-fi, so filing a blog from there (as I am doing now) will be easy.

Met three friendly Maryland delegates on the way up the elevator, one who grew up in Duxbury! Massachusetts is never very far away, it seems.

For pictures of the day's events and political celebrities, please click here or go to www.nancysnewsnetwork.blogspot.com.

Biden's Obama's VP -- and how we learned about it

We are all waking up this morning to the news this morning that Senator Joe Biden is Barack Obama's choice for running mate. But I also woke up at 3:34 this morning to the sound of three little beeps on my phone, sending me this text message: "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!"
Many like me, I imagine, signed up for the text-messaging promised by the campaign -- making literally millions of us among the personal "first" to learn of Obama's VP choice. It's an intriguing and powerful use of technology to keep supporters "in the know" on campaign news -- and no campaign has done it better or on as mammoth a scale as Barack Obama's.
It gives me more than just hope -- rather, a certain confidence -- that someone who campaigns so ably will be able to govern ably too.

Denver: What to Expect

In addition to giving voice to the usual parade of speakers and paeans to the presumptive nominee, the goal of the Denver convention is to have America get to know the Obama family better. Starting with Michele Obama's speech to the convention on Monday night, Barack Obama's personal story will unfold, placed squarely in the context of the great American dream. Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings put it well to the New York Times when he described the broad strokes of Mrs. Obama's speech: "We are the American story. Americans say get an education, give every single thing you do your best — we’ve done that, and now we’re ready to be a part of fulfilling Martin Luther King's dream."

The hope is that this strategy will help voters concerned about Obama's "otherness" over the hurdle and into the ballot-box. Senator Obama acknowledges that he has an onerous task. In an interview last month, he noted, “My biography is not typical of a modern American president.” He underscored that getting voters to suspect their disbelief in his difference is "asking a lot of the American people." Many of us who have supported Obama for many months now went past this point a long time ago, but as we switch into general-election mode it is incisive of his campaign staff (and typical of its discipline) to remain focused on this as the most significant challenge facing Senator Obama in November.

The other, more obvious theme we'll see played out in Denver is "change." With an overwhelming majority of Americans claiming that our country is headed in the wrong direction, change is clearly a priority for many of us. The great enthusiasm that registered this spring and the record numbers of ballots cast during the Democratic primaries underscore this thirst for change in no uncertain terms. It will now be up to the Obama campaign and the Democratic party to utilize the party's platform to make specific to American voters what change will look like.

Gov. Deval Patrick to address DNC

(Photo courtesy of Sharon Heller)

This just in: Governor Deval Patrick has got his own 15 minutes of fame at the DNC in Denver -- on Tuesday night. Look for the governor's prime-time remarks on C-SPAN (but probably not on major-network TV).

Keynote speaker announced: it's Mark Warner

Former Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, August 26.

Mark Warner is running for the U.S. Senate from Virginia for the seat that will be vacated now that Senator John Warner (R) is retiring. This Senate race and the prominence both of the retiring Senator and the Democratic hopeful have cast more than a little public light on Virginia, a battleground state in the national election.

It was the convention's keynote address in 2004 that made Senator Barack Obama's name a household word -- in Democratic households, at least.

There's also been speculation in the press that naming former Governor Warner to give the keynote speech in Denver is a signal from the Obama campaign that current Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will not be picked as Senator Obama's vice-presidential running mate.

Governor Warner has made regular stops in the Bay State a part of his campaign road show. He attended the Roosevelt Day dinner in Boston in June, and last Thursday he was the featured guest at the Obama campaign's New England Steering Committee's weekly meeting.

Denver Convention Update

Things are heating up for the Democratic Convention that begins later this month in the Mile High City.

Speakers have been announced for each night of the convention. Michelle Obama will speak Monday night, followed by Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday and Barack Obama’s vice presidential nominee on Wednesday. Read more details here.

Some of you may have caught the deliberations of the Platform Committee on C-SPAN on Saturday, chaired ably by our own Governor Deval Patrick. The Denver Post hailed the final platform as a concensus document intended both to appease Senator Clinton's supporters even while it sets a new direction for the country, clearly and firmly in language Obama supporters will find familiar.

The Massachusetts delegation has been having conference calls each Tuesday, when state committee staff update us on convention plans, invitations, details and information. I have got numerous emails and voicemails: some were polls asking my opinion, some were invitations to Denver events, still others asked for my support of specific programs and issues.

Happy Birthday, Barack

A couple of my friends had a front-row view at Barack Obama's Boston Birthday Bash last night at 60 State Street, and were kind enough to share some photos.