DENVER -- Thunderheads roiled the Rockies surrounding D'Town. Surging through the 16th Street mall came the massed and masked desperadoes, demanding an end to the war and the empire. Closely watched and nervously corralled by every conceivable form of police and paramilitary squad on the alert for reported low-tech weapons of mass destruction -- round and round downtown they swirled. Democrats were swarming the city. And then there were the delegates.
High above the streets, the irked Clinton compatriots were conjuring one last stand for the vanishing dream of insurrection. Obama had not arrived but was ever present, iconic -- his image stamped on buttons, posters, banners, tickets and more. Bigwigs, high rollers and grand poobahs of every style, strut and station floated above it all.
That's what this observer witnessed in the just his first few hours in Democratic Convention Denver on Sunday. Tension is palpable among the delegates as everyone wonders what the Clinton delegates are going to do in the coming days. As one of those delegates, a Progressive Democrat no less, I recommend that we all get behind the nominee. Progressives are rallying to Obama's candidacy and with good reason -- he is all that lies between the Republic and McCain.
At the Progressive Democrats of America's Progressive Central meeting, Tom Hayden, Rep. Barbara Lee, Norman Solomon, Jim Hightower and every other speaker urged support for Obama's election if not his policy positions. As Paul Krugman has remarked -- the difference between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton is us, the Progressive Movement. Can we elect a centrist and then turn him progressive? I think we can.
It is all achingly historic and terrifying at once. Hope for change, balanced with the recent history of electoral theft, imbues the proceedings. Will every citizen on the left of the political spectrum coalesce behind this candidate? This Party? Corrupted by crony campaign contributions and the incessant compliant search for more of them? Do you dare to dream? I do.
We are off on a Dr. Suessian cavort, a frolicking, rollicking romp. A deadly serious, fanfoozeling, bamboozolous, ratatatootaling raucous ride down the rapids of dissent, consent and, hopefully, consensus.
