Day two...
Got up and headed to the Daily Oregon Delegation Breakfast. They start you off with good, plentiful hot and cold food and then they start in on you with the details of the day. We did get a really interesting lecture from General Tony McPeak, who was the first general to question the war in Iraq. He is from southern Oregon. He said he was always a Republican, but is now an Independent. He gave a good, rousing speech.
Got some great goodies in some bags as we left...we will have more buttons, bags, t-shirts, books, stuffed animals and other bric-a-brac by the time we leave that we will either have to fill another suitcase (and where will that come from?) or we will have to make a UPS run. Not that I am complaining...
We headed across the bridge (we are in Cambridge, right across the river from Boston Proper), and John was interviewed by Jim Barnett, who is the Oregonian's political reporter, based in Washington, DC. He was mentioned in the story in todays (Tuesday's) paper. We went to a big Veteran's event...so big that we could have filled 3 rooms that size...
The speakers were people like James Carville, Max Clelland, Wesley Clark...very inspiring and rousing.
After lunch, it was back to our hotel for some R&R and some computer time before heading off for dinner. We got onto our buses, with our own personal police inside, again. During dinner, David Sarasohn was interviewing John for an article he is writing (check out tomorrow's Oregonian, guys!) and we ate near the
Fleet Center, in the 'North End' where you can get any kind of food you want, as long as it is Italian!
The convention center security was not as horrible as we had been led to believe, so we got in fast. We ran into Jerry Brown (who ran for president in 1976 and I worked on his campaign, he was the gov of Calif and is now the mayor of Oakland). We spoke for a couple of minutes and we moved on.
Oh yeah...while I was in line at the convention center security, I was behind this woman who was carrying a cute stuffed donkey that said DNC 2004 on its feet. I said it was cute and she quickly said, "wanna trade?" I said, "I guess. For what?" She pointed at my pin (Oregon for Kerry/Edwards) and said 'that'. She practically took it off, herself, she was so excited to get it.
John was sitting on the 'Floor' and I was sitting in the balcony, so we split up. I ran into John Cusack! Boy, is he tall! Said hello, he was nice. Got a decent seat, right above the CNN stage and so I got a birds-eye view of Wolf Blitzer and Larry King and all their guests. The woman sitting right in front of me was blogging as we said that and taking and downloading digital pictures and video and so I got a good view of all her close ups, too.
The woman sitting next to me said that she had seen the '2 Steves' from the Daily Show in the hallway downstairs. I was horribly jealous.
The speakers included Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and both the Clintons. All were awesome and inspiring.
John and I quickly gave up on trying to board a bus to get out of the convention center at the end of the evening. 35,000 people were trying to get onto about 10 buses and that didn't seem like it was going to work all that well, so we started walking till we finally could get a cab. We were off to a party for the Oregon and North Carolina delegations, at the original 'Cheers' bar and John Edwards was supposed to be there, but he didn't show. Of course, he had been on the guest list before he was made the VP candidate, so it isn't all that surprising. When we got there, there was a large contingent of police and we had to give our names and show our ID. John saw David Sarasohn standing out on the sidewalk, and he went out to vouch for his good character and they let him in.
We gave up the ghost at about 130 am and cabbed it home to bed...
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