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August 19, 2009
E-mail a friendYOUNG VOICES
On The Ground
Inside the Pepsi Center
Our Web team made it! Ariel Fox and I arrived in Denver mid-morning and spent the day getting the lay-of-the-land, testing our equipment and checking out the workspace for Tavis' television and radio shows.
As Sen. Barack Obama visited battleground states Sunday, the Pepsi Center, where the Democratic National Convention will get underway Monday, was teeming with media and party staff prepping for the four-day event. Satellite trucks lined the parking lots, helicopters flew overhead, network television producers and correspondents readied their shows for primetime and Denver firefighters invited us to chat with them over cookies and brownies. Score!
There was a sense of urgency in the air, but it was mixed with a little awe and a lot of smiles.
“Dead heat”
Just a day after the Obama campaign announced that Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was joining the Democratic ticket this fall, a new poll from CNN and Opinion Research Corp. shows Obama locked in a "dead heat” with his Republican counterpart Sen. John McCain. That gives the Democratic Party until Thursday to try and build some momentum, show off its wares and rally around its candidate.
The week will begin with a "call to order" Monday and several caucus meetings, including the Rural Caucus, the LGBT Caucus and the Ethnic Coordinated Caucus. The theme for the day is “One Nation” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking in the evening and Michelle Obama serving as the headline primetime speaker.
The culmination of the week's events will be Thursday night, when Sen. Obama accepts the party's nomination at the 75,000-seat Invesco Field-- the home of the Denver Broncos, which we can see from the middle of the Pepsi Center grounds.
The anticipation of the speech is building, and the stadium will be packed. Democrats hope the program and the speech will give their candidate a boost in the polls and in the mind of voters as the Republican Party preps for its convention next week.
And, yes, Ariel and I will be there too.