Convention Diaries: Monday

by The Young Sentinel

The Aristocrats

The journey to Denver was long and arduous, hampered by delays at the airport and hotel. I reached my room at 4:15, well after the convention had started. Hurriedly exchanging my jeans and tee shirt for a coat and tie, I ventured down from my roost to attend the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s opening reception, held at a restaurant a block or two from the hotel.

Wending our way through the crowd of Senators, candidates, wives, and mysterious laughing men in expensive suits, I searched for familiar faces among the many foreign ones. Spotting Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, I barely had time for a decent handshake before he was exchanging an inside joke with another insider. I sighed. As the DSCC’s chairman, he was running the show. Slinking between the people in search of food, I arrived at a table adorned with lavish edibles and potent potables. A passing waitress asked if I would like an hors d'oeurvre. For some reason, the marinated steak tips and sushi didn't seem appetizing. It seemed rather too fancy. Too...aristocratic.

Over the next half hour I briefly introduced myself and shook hands with Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, and Rick Noriega, the man aiming to defeat Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. At last I came across Andrew Rice, the young and charismatic congressman who hopes to unseat the Infamous Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe, the Senate chairman on environmental issues, once called global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind”.

Rice, eschewing the five-second encounters so popular among the others, was taken by a comment I made to one of his remarks. To I am sure the great chagrin of several other impatient and important people in the room, Rice was the only one willing to look me in the eye and have a genuine conversation with me. Taking my card, he promised to look up my blog “as soon as I have a chance”.

Passing the others as I exited the joint on the way to the Pepsi Center, I considered how unique a candidate Rice really is. His entire campaign is running solely on momentum he has gained from his populism and closeness to the people. A favorite of the blogs, Rice could have been a different species. I don't need an aristocrat.

The Last Hurrah

Having miraculously obtained the extra Monday ticket (of a superior access level than my own) from a man I was talking with, I instantly forgot Nevada's house races when I stepped into the arena. Like Plato's caveman, I was blinded by the light as I stepped out of the corridor and into the roaring cacophony. Soon I became accustomed to my surroundings, but a shiver went down my back as I stood and took in the thousands of sign-wielding, mantra-yelling, button-bearing spectators.

I sat next to an eighty-year-old Oregon woman, an alternate delegate for her state. We talked at length about candidates, political history, and her incredible life story. As congressmen and state officials walked up onto the convention stage to give their short speeches, I heard of how she grew up in Detroit, registered voters in 1950s Orange County, organized alongside Cesar Chavez, taught, earned degree after degree in public policy and social work, traveled to Japan and other countries, and finally settled down in Oregon. The epic tale left my mind spinning. Then the Ted Kennedy montage began, and there rippled across the hall a great ripple of whispering. "He's here," they said. "He's flown out to Denver." When Kennedy, the veteran senator now afflicted with brain cancer, walked out onto the stage, the spectators went berserk.

I watched, saddened, as the great Kennedy dynasty drew to a close. Ted's two brothers were shot down decades ago, and his own days are numbered. Over the years, despite his faults, he has fought for what he believed to be right, and has served longer than any other senator ever save Harry Byrd. Often the lone voice of reason, to hear his cracked voice was a reminder of the transience of life and politics.

But, leaning against the podium for support, Kennedy declared boldy and clearly that he was passing the torch to a new generation. After over a dozen conventions Ted Kennedy is finally through: he will most likely not live to see another. But everyone watching can bear witness to this new movement in American politics: that after all these years of life under the Aristocrats, the people will have a chance to speak out for a change in the way politics is played, to instill new blood and new life into our decaying Democracy. The Democrats offer that choice. The people will speak.