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”.

At hot bistro, ALTO in the Larimer Historic District, Senate candidate and DNC keynoter Mark Warner threw a reception that in a matter of mere minutes packed completely full. According to staffer Craig Kirby, the plan was for an intimate 200 key supporters. Nevertheless, 1500 people RSVP’d

That left leading political and financial lights like Rep. Jim Moran, former DNC chair Chuck Manatt and millionaire hotel developer R. Donahue Peebles standing either in the 90 degree heat waiting on cue to get in or held in a secondary room where Warner decidely was not.

I got in, though.

But such is the phenomenal popularity of the former governor who has built a loyal core of supporters who  would follow him over a hill if asked. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Joe Biden’s foreign policy experience aside, had Mark Warner nto been running for Senate, he would have been the VP pick.

Even while some pundits discuss the likely fallout from an Obama victory in regard to limiting civil rights, few have talked about the possible benefits to African American business, particuarly in the lobbying arena.

Lobbying is fundamentally a game of influence. Fortunes are gained or lost by the ability of lobbying firms to convince their corporate clients that they have an inside connection to decision makers in the House, Senate and White House and can have some impact of swaying an opinion - or at least ensuring that an opinion gets a hearing.

In that dynamic, only are relatively few Black lobbyists have been able to break through to the big leagues, representing major powers in telecom, Big Tobacco, consumer goods, retailers, automakers and more. When Republic presidents win, Republican lobbyists clean up. When Democrats win the House and Senate, Democratic lobbyists get the inside edge.

So naturally with the possible first Black president in the wings, an Obama White House could mean boom times for African American lobbyists, right? Not necessarily.

I talked with a number of lobbyists (who asked not to be identified) and they had what could only be consider a cautious optimism.

A few quotes:

“He’s been talking he’s talking anti-lobbyist since the start of he campaign. He’s actually been more anti-lobby than any candidate in years.”

“I understand the whole symbolic connection of lobbyists to the whole image of “change in Washington” but it’s ironic. For the very first time in history, we [black lobbyists] have at least the appearance of a strong connection to a president, and he’s running as the anti-lobby candidate.”

“To make matters worse, at the top tiers, Barack’s campaign is not significantly diverse. The people running the show are largely connected to people like Tom Daschle historically.”

“Many black lobbyists will bluff it a bit, to be quite honest. They’ll play the perception that they have more clout than the next guy, but it many respects a high number of black lobbyists are farther away from this campaign in string connections that they were from Al Gore or John Kerry.”

“Washington is a town where we should thinking right now “This is our breakthrough”. We should be thinking of this the way people thought when Marion Barry won as mayor – when black businesses scored major victories in a very short time because of their connections. But this is more akin to Tony Williams as mayor and a much more broad group of people expected to see the benefits. Still, most of the lobbying shops are run by Republicans who have no connection at all, so as long as you can present a credible connection to the campaign, this should still be good times.”

Historical perspective is always important in these moments and a fact little known by those under a certain age is that now NAACP chairman and then Georgia State Senator Julian Bond once carried the halo of being “The One”, at least according a poll of Black America done by Johnson Publishing and appearing in the August 1971 edition of JET.

In a national poll of African Americans, the poll found that 33% of the Black community “strongly preferred” Julian Bond as a candidate to run for president in the upcoming 1972 presidential election. Problem was, Bond was too young at the time, at the tender young age of 32 (candidates must be 35). Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes came in a close second with 30%. Both far distanced the competition which included Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep. Charles Diggs, Jesse Jackson and comedian/activist Dick Gregory.

Once he did become of age, Bond toyed with the idea, if only for a minute.

Bond gave me a quick interview by e-mail:

Here’s as much as I can recall.

I circulated to black elected officials a proposal for what I called a “Favorite-Son-Or-Daughter Presidential Campaign” – or rather a series of campaigns. The idea would be that because some prominent black elected official presently holding office in, for example, California, would be better known to California black voters than he/she might be to voters in other states, that person should run for President as a “favorite son (or daughter)” candidate in California while other well-known black elected officials would do the same in their home states - all of them pledged to a single set of campaign issues important to blacks..

This would not only lower the costs of running a single candidate nationwide, it would in my opinion have strengthened the chance of electing convention delegates tied to a single set of campaign issues.

There was little interest in this idea – and in 1976, I decided to run myself. I announced, registered with the Federal Elections Commission, and started off.

I raised very little money, little interest, and had only a minute volunteer staff. After some months I abandoned the campaign. But I did have some very attractive bumper stickers and even some t-shirts, combined what was then a heavy nationwide speaking schedule with campaign appearances.