There was some worry that after a four hour program, which despite the excitement did have its duller moments, the crowd might be worn out with the anticipation and only mildly enthused when Obama finally took the stage.

There was nothing to worry about. The moment delivered on the hype and then some. But objectively, it was the presence and spectacle of it all that carried more emotion than the speech itself. Which is not to criticize the speech, just to recognize the impact of the collective energy of 85,000 souls - men, women, children - who had made a pilgrimage of sorts to the coming of a new America.

Obama’s statement that the moment ” is not about me, it’s about you” was entirely on target, even it it was the politically expedient thing to say. I got a crop of e-mails as Obama was speaking asking me for my feelings, I would have to say that above all there was within the stadium a universal feeling of crossing a bridge after a long and painful journey. We were not quite home yet, but everyone seemed to sense that we were a lot closer than we’ve ever been.

Does it sound like cheerleading to say the speech was a spiritual moment? Again, not the words but “the moment” of it all. Similar to the day Mandela was released from prison, there was in the air a palpable aura of imminent change for America. Whether Obama is the change or the just the catalyst the sparks one is yet to be seen. But if you turned around from watching Obama and looked deeply into the audience, you quickly realized that the change we are all looking for had happened in the stands long before Obama came on stage.

The question facing us is do we all require an Obama to lead us there, or are we brave enough to make the changes ourselves? We are the change we seek, indeed.

Sam Donaldson appreciates the joys of a production truck and electrical backup.

If you’ve been paying attention you may have noticed a slight change in tone in my posts from a live blogging present tense to the past tense. That because right about at this moment in the program - BANG - no power in almost all of my battery-driven gear, which was nearly everything.

Despite an meticulously planned event, the logistics people neglected to do one important thing - provide outlets to writers on the field, or do a row of press seats directly off the field in the seats with power lines attached. The television camera you saw all around were drawing power pulled from inside the arena and were connected to satellite trucks outside. Everybody else? Completely at the mercy of the limitations of battery life in our various technological gadgetry. For me, the flat out worst thing could have happened, my Mac laptop went dead with a full charge after maybe 45 minutes tops. This from a computer that brags about 3 hours of battery life.

Apparently this happened to many people - press and otherwise. Some speculate that with 85,000 people, nearly all using some sort of electrical device, plus 12,000 members of the press plugged in to something, that there was a serious power drain happening. Maybe, maybe not, I just know that was the killer for me.

There were accommodations for writing press inside the arena - a way too small and completely full press filing center near the Broncos locker rooms, and some tables in the basement hallway that were reserved for Getty Images, Reuters, Fox News and the other wire services.

Unlike Pepsi Center, the press boxes at Invesco were in what are normally the sports writer booths next to the skyboxes. The problem was that it was accessible only by a single elevator that took too much time. and it was enclosed in glass. That was an option if you were okay just being and observer, but the real action, the real emotion and the people who could answer questions were down on the field. There was no way I was leaving that kind of excitement to sit in a booth to live blog - especially since so many people - 38 million by some reports - were watching on television.

I’m vain, but not so vain to imagine that people were going to switch off the TV and watch me follow it by blog. So every post beyond this point has the perspective of a few hours for all of it to sink in, which is probably better anyway.

Kudos to Canon - my camera outlasted every device. And as much as I hate it otherwise, my corporate Palm Treo held out all night as well. The JVC HD hard drive video camera died with 3 minutes to go in Barack’s speech. Three freaking minutes. Thanks for nothing, JVC.

All I have to say to Steve Jobs and the people at Apple is, I love your stuff, but Dude, stop with the phones and focus on the battery thing - NOW. I’d settle for solar power and a hand crank at this point.

Jennifer Hudson sings the Star Spangled Banner

Well-practiced after her initial flub, gymnast Sean Johnson opened the ceremony with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by Jennifer Hudson, who corrected those pitch issues and started the day off with a bang.

Quite a few people during the week questioned whether Rev. Jesse Jackson would show up to the convention, especially since his son, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. - a national campaign chair and early supporer - took the spotlight on stage earlier in the week, a position Jackson Sr. may have held in conventions past.

But the senior Jackson, comments aside, has always been an Obama supporter, and not only did he show up, as I mentioned in an earlier post he was rock star and along with Cory Booker, the most sought after by news cameras and autograph seekers. The Reverend pulled me and Michelle Norris of National Public Radio aside on the stadium floor to remind us of the history that wasn’t being spoken publicly that night.

He made the point that the event surrounding King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not a celebration at all but a dangerous protest. He contrasted the number of Black sports and TV celebrities in the stadium with the fact that there were only a handful of Black professional athletes in 1963 and almost no African Americans at all on television, in films and definitely not playing at the Division I college level. Jackson also noted the major businessmen in the crowd and the number of Black people with special seating because of their status as fundraisers and major bundlers in contrast to the economic state of the Black community at the time of the March on Washington.

He said all that not to put a damper on the moment but to put emphasis on how far this nationa has come in those 45 years, with the caveat that after the celebration was over - and even if Obama ultimately wins- there is still a lot of work in the trenches that needs to be done, and that in the joy of victory we can’t forget people who are still left out. It was appropriate perspective.

If the official speeches did not emphasize the history of the moment, people in the audience kept it in focus.

Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children’s Defense Fund, looked further back to African American freedom by prominently wearing a Harriet Tubman cameo.

And of course, tickets and credentials are being peddled like crack on a street corner. One wrinkle for a number of press people and guests is that the credentials that got you into the various spaces and perimeters in the Pepsi Center apply to Invesco Field. Which sounds fine except that it’s a completely different arena with a whole different setup.

Those of us carrying CAMERA STAND passes for example, were hobbled greatly last night when the security crackdown stemming from Obama being in the building limited our mobility to a stand that was next to the podium, but 80% of that stand was out of the site lines of the speakers.

This time around, however, barring being a delegate, CAMERA STAND is platinum with everything else paling in comparison. We have direct sitelines on a platform right behind the first row of delegates in the Ohio and Illinois delegation, who have prime seating because of their significance in both the primary and general elections.

The full text of Joe Biden's nomination acceptance speech.

Partially because convention speeches are completed at the last minute, but mostly because PR types don’t want the media to preempt any news that might be made before a newsmaker makes it, reporters sitting near the podium receive a paper copy each speaker’s address just minutes - sometimes second - before the speaker goes on.

All carry the words: Embargoed for Delivery, meaning the upon acceptance, the press makes a gentleman’s agreement not to talk about or publish what’s in the speech until it begins. In theory, in this new age of the web, you could print the ending before it’s all over, but if anyone found out, you’d never get another speech on paper again.

Bragging rights: Somewhere in a box in a storage room, I still have the signed and marked up (by Jackson) copy of the speech he gave at the 1988 Democratic Convention. For my kids, not for Ebay. But I’ll take bids on this Biden speech.

In a stunning move of unification, Hillary Clinton, in a move that effectively ended the talk that she had said only what she needed to say in her speech, ( a perception her people were highly uncomfortable with privately) moved that Barack Obama be nominated by acclamation, suspending the rules of the convention and ending the voting, though technically counting the votes for record. It is a difference without a distinction from a unanimous vote, but because the votes against do get counted in the historical record, an acclamation is not a unanimous vote.

This has been done a number of times in past conventions, but generally as a move to quiet renegade votes in more acrimonious times that this year, and it is generally moved by the side of the nominee - not by the opposition.

By yielding , or skipping their own votes, the states of New Mexico and Illinois facilitated Clinton’s ability to make that move. This was an unusual scenario, as yields are generally used when it looks like a presumptive nominee will reach the needed number of delegates to secure the nomination prior to his home state’s order in the list.

It is common to give the right to place a candidate over the top to the delegation from his home state. On average that needed number usually falls somewhere near the middle of the alphabet - in this case “N”.

Had we not had the Hillary factor here, Illinois would have “passed” on its first opportunity to vote.

New Mexico, holding the number that would take Obama over,  would have yielded its votes back to Illinois, which would then have put Barack over the top.

Confusing? Consider it like a game of eenie meenie mynee moe and skipping a toe or two so your big toe can be “it”.