DENVER -- Now that the only way left for Hillary to become a chief executive this year is to pull an Aaron Burr, flee to Mexico and start her own country, all eyes are focused on Joe Biden. Although mine have been focused on the Denver bicycle police. When they are lined up against a wall, in their shorts, shades and black baseball hats, they look like a whole row of Hunter S. Thompson.

The McCain Kids or McCain Youth or whatever they call themselves are breaking out the heavy artillery. They're handing out small, red cards with a mild Obama joke from Jay Leno's monologue. At a time when Republicans are treating Biden like a war criminal because he cribbed some sections of a speech, McCain's young-uns are stealing a comedian's material.

Biden is a good fit for Denver, because the whole city looks plagiarized. One neighborhood looks like Boston, one looks like L.A. There's a World Trade Center and a Dakota. Only the Rockies aren't derivative.

This convention the speakers are very big on family-style Horatio Alger stories, in which a relative made a long, inspiring journey. But nobody's story arc is quite like Tyler Arthur's, whom I met selling his book, God Is Not an Elephant. This "recovering Reagan Republican" went from working for the George Bush I re-election campaign to being a progressive who supports Obama. Republicans need to see him. If I see any more McCain Kids, I'm gonna read them passages from his insightful book.

Speaking of young people, none are more hardworking in Denver than the pedicab College Students. When delegates go to the Pepsi Center to hear about "good jobs" and how we shouldn't "exploit people," many of them were pedaled there by an out-of-breath sophomore.

Biden will have to do his own (back)pedaling tonight. He will have to convince the electorate that already knows him that 36 years in Congress does not make him an insider. And to prove that he and Obama are not the least inspiring black male-white male duo since Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.

John Marshall is performing stand-up comedy in Breaking Convention, with Scott Blakeman, Jimmy Tingle and Will Durst, Aug. 27 at 7:30 p.m. and Aug. 28 at 1 p.m., The Bug Theater, 3654 Navajo Street, Denver, 303-477-5977.