THE Democratic National Convention in Denver. Denver’s a cow town. Doesn’t mean what we’re going to see here is the milk of human kind ness. Means like what’s coming is a large load of bull. Having covered these rah-rah sis-boom-bah hoo-has since Lincoln’s day, I tell you Denver’s a real thrill. Especially since it recently plummeted to 100 degrees. The only little cool air comes from bumping into a Hillary supporter.
Denver’s wonderful. Nice air. Unlike New York, you don’t even see it. Your eye can find the sky. Your eye can find the sun. But besides that there’s not lots to see. One of the highest structures around is a silo.
Denver. Zero humidity, zero dampness, and, some say, zero culture. However, I, naturally, would never say such a thing.
Home to Mile High Stadium and football’s great Denver Broncos, it’s also an important place for some really famous people. Katharine Bates, who wrote “America the Beautiful,” did it here. Something called Zebulon Pike, who discovered Pike’s Peak (Imagine if he called it Zebulon’s Peak?) here in Colorado, actually comes from Jersey. OK, so not too many people come from here. India.Arie comes from here. Tim Allen comes from here. But even the people who come from here don’t stay here. They just come from here.
My flight to the Democratic convention was like an airborne dorm. Everyone knew everyone:
* Sen. Frank Lautenberg was like Joe Biden. He worked both sides of the aisle.
* Anderson Cooper, in jeans and T-shirt, avoided the plastic eggs and cardboard fruit breakfast. He slept altogether.
* CNN contributor/Democratic National Committeeman Robert Zimmerman read the Times.
* WPIX’s Marvin Scott managed to get his name paged over the intercom. We envied him.
* Best-selling author Jeffrey Toobin said he was doing a paid lecture while he’s here. We envied him, too.
* Veteran reporter Gabe Pressman remembered his first convention, 1952, “and Adlai Stevenson hated Truman but uttered glowing things about him publicly – just like today with Hillary and Obama.”
* And Time magazine’s Mark Halperin said: “If anything happens on this plane, Cindy Adams will get top billing.”
This actually is the centennial of the town’s 1908 Dem convention when William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska – where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the deer and the antelope play – was nominated for president. Unfortunately his first discouraging word came fast. Republican William Howard Taft got elected. And nearby Aurora, Colo., is the birthplace of John Kerry, who ran as the Democratic nominee in 2004 and, as far as I know, blew it. Hearing these shreds of nostalgia, Obama delegates told me to take my history and shove it.
The first bits of news out of here are 1) Obama will be on the ground 36 hours. Showing up a little before his speech, out right after. 2) Surprise could be Ted Kennedy speaking. Although expected in person, he may have pre-taped. Should he be feeling poorly, the backup plan would be to play him on video.
Nobody here discusses Michael Phelps or Fay the hurricane or Alex Rodriguez‘s love life. On every street corner the lone subject is Barack Obama. Never just Obama. Always Barack Obama. Sometimes they’ll say Bush or Clinton or McCain or Hillary but always the two names of the Democratic candidate. Why? Like there’s another Barack? Barack O’Shaughnessy maybe? A Barack Schwartz someplace?
The locals are wonderful. Friendly, eager to help. Strategically positioned senior citizens bear signs that say, “Ask me.” Happily, they give information and directions. And although the bags took so long to arrive at the airport that we weren’t sure we’d get them before the next convention, there were flowers in vases at the luggage carousels. That was nice especially when some luggage got badly bollixed. One arriving planeload found its suitcases coming in on another flight altogether. A voice behind me muttered, “This is really irritating.” Trust me, New Yorkers don’t do irritating well.
It’s just that the city hasn’t enough infrastructure, practice or smarts to suddenly accommodate a few tons of wild politicians on the hoof. New York moves this many subway-riders every day, but the only stampedes this place knows from are of the four-legged variety. In terms of staging a giant convention, nobody here knows his ass from his steer.
But, again, the people are delicious. A welcoming event for journalists was the party at Elitch Gardens, an outdoor Coney Island-type amusement park. Everything was free – rides, games, prizes, food, drink, dessert. But, let’s not talk about the food. Bull meatball? I reached for one interesting-looking hors d’oeuvre. What is it, I asked? “Fried bull testicle,” the server said. I went for the celery stick.