Just because someone asked, here’s the Official List of who’s tall and who’s short in in real life among the dozens of political, media and Hollywood star types seen in Denver the past few days. In no particular order:
Sheryl Lee Ralph- Tall. Beautiful.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC - Tall. Huge head.
John Legend - Short
Will.i.Am of the Black Eyed Peas: Short-ish
Fergie: Short
George Stephanopoulos: Leprechaun short
Ted Koppel: Short
Louis Gossett, Jr: Very tall
Sam Donaldson: Tall
Charlie Rose: Tall
Charlie Gibson, GMA - Tall-ish
Ann Curry - Short
Anderson Cooper - Short-ish
Alfre Woodard - Short
Dan Rather - Tall-ish
Gov. Bill Richardson - Surprisingly tall
Mayor Cory Booker - Tall
There were a couple times during the convention when either the limitations of my point and shoot digital camera or having the wrong pass at the wrong time stopped me from getting a decent shot off - even though this was not intended as a photo blog, per se. But pictures help.
Bryan Monroe, the editor of our big sister EBONY mag, filled in nicely on those occasions with a much better lens and a decent angle or two. Thanks to him for his photos of Kennedy, Jennifer Hudson, Jesse Jr., the Michigan delegates on the convention floor, Jesse Sr. and some ones I’m using in later posts of Sheryl Lee Ralph,Gore and Obama.
The familial atmosphere on the floor not only loosened spirits after a stressful week, it also loosened lips from a number of delegates on the reality of the roll call vote just a day earlier and how touchy the negotiations got within some state delegation regarding whether some states would vote unanimously for Barack Obama or continue to vote their Hillary votes out of symbolism.
Georgia, New Hampshire and other states struggled mightily with hardcore Hillary supporters who were insistent on voting their personal choice, especially in New Hampshire which effectively brought Hillary back to life during the primary after Barack’s Iowa smackdown.
Even at lunch the next day with several Obama delegates and in conversations in the airport and on the plane back, it was clear that even in the afterglow, some bitterness was still lingering. Which could mean that even though the thought of Governor Sarah Palin and her tiny bio being a Hillary substitute sounds ridiculous on its face, there will be some Hillary people who will make that switch based on teh sole factor that Palin is a woman.
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.
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.
Before the festivities started in earnest, around 3pm Denver time, organizers kept the crowd that wasn’t in the hallway buying food and merchandise hyped with all the old school standards that since since the early 80s have become campaign standards - Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family”, the O’Jay’s “Love Train” along with a load of classic 70s rock from the likes Fleetwood Mac and Journey.
Note: Video taken with my Canon digital still camera, not my video camera - an issue I’ll address in my next post.
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.
Two clear themes prevailed as you looked at the audience that by 4pm had begun to fill the nosebleed upper tiers of the stadium - diversity and family.
The crowd was indeed overwhelmingly white, but not so much so that it seemed out of balance. To parrot a campaign phrase, the audience simply “looked like America” - at its best.
In some ways, it was a Million Man March for everyone, with people coming for all kinds of reasons, for political passion or just the chance to say they were a part of history. If I were forced to compare it to another event, it would be the visit of Pope John Paul II to the National Mall in Washington DC in the early 80s where people of all races, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, walked miles and across bridges to see something they’d likely never see again.
And there were families, hundreds of families, all hoping to participate in an Encylopedia Brittanica moment they could share together for a lifetime.
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.
