Last night was spectacular – from beginning to end.  When President Clinton is good, he is as good as it gets.  However, there were a couple of amusing slips.  The music preceding Clinton’s faultless speech was “Chain of Fools” and the second song in his exit music was “Addicted To Love”.  Not the choices I might have made.

I loved it when Biden talked about his mother, but then I would, wouldn’t I?  Obama’s surprise appearance was perfect.  The people in the hall needed to see him in a smaller setting than tonight will be and he didn’t steal the show from Biden, just topped it off.  If any newscaster said it was less than pandemonium in the hall, they were simply lying.  The enthusiasm, the spirit, the sense of unity and victory were over the top.  You can see, taste, smell and feel the excitement.

The spotless Denver streets were packed until early morning with celebrating conventioneers and souvenir hawkers who know they are getting close to their last chance of selling their wares.  After two or three parties, Sam and I cut out but here’s what my son Nicholas wrote about last night:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicholas-brown/conventioneering-wednesda_b_121850.html

I just returned from a lunch with Pelosi, Biden and Michele Obama.  Michele Obama said her children were embarrassed with her last night because “Mommy you were in tears on television all the time.”    She wasn’t alone. 

AND THIS FROM YESTERDAY:

Hot Flashes From The Campaign Trail

Alison Teal

 
It’s over.  Or, maybe it’s not over.  I’m not sure what I think of the Hillary issue.  Up until yesterday, I felt doom and despair.  On Sunday at the Harvard/Shorenstein Media event with all the Sunday morning talk show hosts, I would have said we’d lost it because of the disgruntled Hillary people.  Special guest Governor Ed Rendell replayed all the Hillary grievances from sexism in the press to what he perceived as Obama’s hypocrisies on fund raising.  Some people left the room in anger.  Others applauded him.  Then on Monday, a number of Hillary delegates left the convention center or didn’t even collect their credentials to show their lack of support for Michele Obama.   But yesterday, at the Emily’s List event with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Michele Obama, I was sure it was all going to be okay. Hundreds of exhausted women who’d been standing for over an hour in uncomfortable shoes cheered the ticket as much as they cheered Hillary.  And that was Emily’s list, her core base.  And her speech last night did what it had to do.  But will she be able to control her disgruntled supporters?  Certainly not all of them.  I wanted her to go a step further.  I wanted her to actually speak to the delegates holding the Hillary signs and thank them and tell them how much she appreciated their hard work and support.  And then I wanted her to tell them to put the signs down, now and forever, and to hold up the unity signs and get over it.  But that was asking too much.  And anyway Sam thinks that just would have called attention to the recalcitrant few.
 
I was sitting in the Pelosi family box, right next to the Obama friends and family box and was touched by the people in both of those boxes when they applauded and held up the Hillary signs.  In spite of what some reporters are indicating, the enthusiasm in the arena was not limited.  It was wildly enthusiastic.  But you just can’t help but wonder how over the top it could be if it were simply an all out Obama convention.  I think we’ll find out on Thursday.



 

It's a great choice!  He's "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy".

 
We’ve arrived in Denver.  I have a soft spot for this town.  It’s where our two daughters were born, where Sam began his political career, and where for eight years, I wrote for The Denver Post.  We always loved this city for its wonderful weather, its social permeability and its laid back pace.  But that’s not the town that welcomes us today.  This week Denver is a city on steroids.
 
There are no hotel rooms, no available flights and no parking.  There are also no homeless, or maybe there are, but they’re all spiffed up (free haircuts and grooming thanks to various salons) and given free entrance to movies, museums, bingo games and the zoo.
 
The Convention schedule is intense.  There is a constant struggle to get people to come to competing events that range from the trivial to the self-important to the substantive.  Here’s a sampling:  Rock the Vote is having a rock ‘n roll concert — no surprise here; The Creative Coalition has the Black Eyed Peas and a bevy of Hollywood stars; Impact Film Festival has a screening of “Battle In Seattle”; The National Democratic Institute has programs virtually every hour on foreign policy issues with large numbers of foreign dignitaries; The Truman Foreign Policy Center has discussions with William Perry and Richard Danzig; Project New West has briefings on battleground states, an effort to turn the Rocky Mountain region blue; The Shorenstein Center at Harvard has a panel with Sunday morning TV moderators; The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation has an event with a host of Kennedys, including, it is rumored, Teddy and Victoria; The Colorado Host Committee has a welcome reception at The Palm; The Campaign For America’s Future has progressive speakers at The Big Tent; Politico and the USC Annenberg Center have discussions on Politics and the Media; The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a salute to the Speaker featuring James Taylor, John Legend and Tony Bennett; The Democratic National Committee has a performance by Second City and a long series of receptions; Emily’s List has a full program of which the hottest ticket is a lunch with Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Michele Obama; the Solar Energy Industry Association has a SunFest celebration; and Google and Vanity Fair are hosting a closing night party.  Then there are events hosted by The Democracy Alliance, The Center for American Progress, The Conference of Democratic Mayors, The National Democratic Governors’ Association, The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, The Democratic National Convention Committee, and The Obama National Finance Committee.  This doesn’t count the events sponsored by the unions, trade associations, lobbyists, publishers and miscellaneous others, nor does it include the official proceedings.  Many events can only be attended if you have an invitation or credentials or both.  You might think this would be limited to delegates and alternates, but you would be wrong.  There are a vast number of hangers on, including the two of us.
 
There are also loads of free events.  Some are put on by these organizations and others will be planned protests, teach-ins and marches -- which you hear a lot more about in the national media than you do on the ground in Denver.  The assumption here is that things such as the appalling Hillary support march are just a few cranky people who need to move on and get over it.  I’m not sure why this march is necessary since there’s agreement that the Clintons will be featured each night at the convention.  “We want to rattle the Obama cage a little,” said a professional woman and former colleague of mine.  “You wouldn’t want it to be Obamamania, would you?”  Hmmm.  Let me see.  I’d like to rattle McCain’s cage.  Isn’t the point of a convention to come away with a huge sense of unity, energy, and a bump in the polls?  I’m reminded that forty years ago, there was a real issue that split the party, a platform that didn’t call for an end to the war, a list of convention speakers virtually closed to opponents of that war, and a nominee who didn’t even run in the primaries. This year we have a platform everyone agrees on, an open and broad list of speakers and a candidate who proved himself in the nomination process.
 
In 1968, my husband Sam was the liaison between the McCarthy campaign and the protesters and was eventually a defense witness at the Trial of the Chicago Seven.  He knows what serious protest looks like at a convention, and this isn’t it. This week, it’s just about sour grapes on the part of a very, very few disgruntled people who refuse to get behind their leader in her unstinting support of the party and the nominee.  People we know who’ve been involved in the negotiations between the Obama and Clinton campaigns describe a congenial process in which Hillary’s people had clear direction to reach an agreement which would be good for the Obama campaign and the country, and in which Obama’s people had firm direction to be generous.
 
However, there will be people who are in town simply to disrupt. Within the leadership of the 1968 convention, there were agents provocateurs from the Chicago police and the FBI.  This time around, it looks like they may be from the McCain campaign and the kooky right. Tom Hayden reminds me that the trial in Chicago was largely focused on charges that people had crossed state lines to provoke a riot.  This year we know there is someone encouraging people to cross state lines to provoke chaos and his name is Rush Limbaugh.  He should be subject to a citizen’s arrest when he walks out of his studio.
 
But I digress, the point is every day from about 10:00 a.m. in the morning to 1:00 a.m., there are two to three competing events except for the 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. slot when most, but not all, organizations had the grace not to schedule things during the actual convention.  I intend to attend as many of these events as possible, selecting them, as any serious person does, according to star power and menu.
 
I hope to be emailing you about it all but mac.com in its vigilance for spammers, frequently decides I am one and cuts me off.  Therefore, I suggest for the next week you go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-teal/hot-flashes-from-the-camp_b_118548.html
Please mark “Become a fan” and it should come to your inbox automatically.  Also, it really helps promote me, whatever that means.  It’s not like I’m getting paid but professional people tell me a “promotion” is a good thing.  Thanks.

We drove to Denver yesterday to nose around and check out the convention arrangements. The good news is that the construction at the Pepsi Center appears to be ahead of schedule, so we’ll look competent and professional when the television cameras roll.  Remember a sports team was using it until just a little while ago.  The stage, lighting, sound, flooring, seating, network accommodations, etc., all had to be changed.  The networks are unquestionably still irritated at the change of venue for Thursday night.  It will cost them a lot, but if they have to spend some small percentage of the profit they got this year from political advertising to actually cover a political event, I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
 
Parking will be a nightmare.  No surprise there, it always is.  But security will be much increased from previous conventions, so the problem is greater.  It will be equivalent to elevated airport security.  The perimeter will encompass the parking lot; so essentially, there will be no parking available.  The Colorado Host committee decided yesterday to put in more park and ride buses throughout the city and suburbs.  This is a killer financially for the committee, which needs to raise another $7.5 million in the next few days.
 
Actually the parking is already a problem, at least for me.  On returning to our car, I was confronted by a cop giving me a parking ticket.  While writing out the ticket, he told me he thinks the police have massively underestimated the number of protesters coming to town.  I think he is wrong.  It doesn’t feel like protest is in the air.  Sadly, there is not much evidence of the Obama campaign in street signs.  I hope that will change by next week.
 
The security at Invesco on Thursday will begin operating at 1:00 p.m..  No water or food can be brought into the stadium, but all the vendors inside will be open and I’m sure many entrepreneurs will be selling water to those waiting in line.  Once you’re in, the wait will be formidable.  The networks’ coverage will be from 6-9 p.m.. RMT, with Obama speaking at 8 p.m. so his speech is in prime time across the country.  The cable networks will begin before 6 p.m. and, of course, will be covering everything all the time so if anything interesting develops, they can break in with the news.  Getting 78,000 people through the magnetometers and into the stadium is going to make Kennedy and O’Hare look like, well, a lesser nightmare. (Those 78,000 tickets are so in demand that they're being hocked on e-bay already even though no one actually has them yet.) The entertainment for the trapped interior crowds begins at least by 4 p.m. and probably before. However there are rumors of using the event as an organizing opportunity to get the people there fully engaged in the ground campaign.  Sound like fun?  Actually, to me it does, but I’m sure most of you will be happy to be watching it on TV.
 
Oh! Someone told me there's a rumor that all the local escort agencies are staffing up and expecting a spike in demand. 
 
P.S.
I am now on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-teal/hot-flashes-from-the-camp_b_118548.html
 
If you would rather go to their site and click “become a fan”, you can get Hot Flashes from their site instead of from me.  Let me know and I’ll take you off the list.

It’s been a strange fortnight even for Aspen.  The town’s been filled with monks and money, prayer flags and protests, rubber ducks and rugby.  Okay, okay, Aspen is always filled with money.  Let’s face it; money is to Aspen as cheese steaks are to Philadelphia.  And privilege is to Aspen as ambition is to Washington.

This is a town where on a short walk, you can pass a make-do production of Antigone at the Aspen Institute with Madeleine Albright pretending to hang herself in front of the King of Thebes.  Next, you might see a bunch of young physicists playing a noisy game of volleyball just across from the Music Tent where last week you would have heard Condoleezza Rice giving a Brahms’ recital.  You can slip through the picnicking crowds and head toward the river, wandering through the quiet West End of town where Obama signs are scattered amongst the original Victorian houses. (To be fair, the houses are original on the street side only; the backs have often mushroomed out of all proportion.) After passing by the Aspen Brewery, a new watering hole where the beers have intoxicating names like “Independence Pass Ale”, “Conundrum Red Ale” and “10th Mountain Stout” after the U.S. army’s 10th mountain division, you might walk toward John Denver Park where you could see a red-carpeted bridge drawing people into the Art Museum’s fundraising event. Then, go on to the Roaring Fork River, past fly fishermen and hikers, and up the hill toward Hunter Creek. 

On any given day, you can see Strobe Talbott or Justice Kennedy sitting at Zele Cafe, listening to a group of music students play; or a guy in a Hell’s Angels jacket strolling through the Farmer’s Market carefully selecting heirloom tomatoes; or a young Prada-Jimmy Choo-and-Fendi attired woman heading for an opera master class directed by Julliard’s Ed Berkeley, in his signature Bermuda shorts which show off his massive mountain-climbing calves. There’s popular culture too, and movie stars and 30,000 yellow rubber ducks in sunglasses floating past No Problem Bridge (a fundraiser for youth organizations), and rugby games with the Gentlemen of Aspen, and screenings of Gonzo, and very orderly protests  -- all the things that make up the idyllic summer playgrounds of the very privileged. But there’s always an undertone in these sorts of places, always a sense of doom teetering just under the gently twisting Aspen leaves, a sense of people running away from something; something they left simmering on the stove back home.  But I’m not saying I hate it.  In fact, I really, really love it here.  When the rest of the country is having conversations about the Olympics or Rielle Hunter, Aspenites are screaming about the rebirth of Russian national aspiration in its most ugly form.

However, there are a few obvious things Aspen doesn’t have -- things like shops that sell something you might actually need, affordable housing, and, let’s be frank . . . diversity. There are some Hispanics around, but they mostly live down valley. And, give me a break, the following statistic was printed in the local paper: the town is .44% black. Last winter, comedian Agent Dunn took advantage of this statistic and offered people the chance to meet a real live black person.  Fur coats flocked around his booth at the bottom of the gondola:
 

This summer however, there was more diversity than usual because this summer, His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to Aspen, and along with him loads of Buddhist monks.

“Let me sit more comfortably,” the Dalai Lama said, as he untied and removed his shoes, settling into a big comfy chair at his speech in the tent.  “Don’t worry, I won’t just sit cross-legged and meditate and not talk,” he giggled.  He didn’t have a prepared text.  “I’m lazy,” he explained, adding that he didn’t have much time so he didn’t like homework.  He circled around the audience’s questions, at first saying things that seemed almost irrelevant. I thought he’d lost his train of thought and was off on some tangent. Then he’d verbally circle in, spiral-like, to the subject at hand and bring it all together in one final, simple, brilliant point.  It was always about compassion. 

“Why is the act of compassion so difficult to practice?” someone asked.  “I find it easier to show my dog or complete strangers compassion than I do close friends and family.”

“Compassion is not feeling pity,” he said.  “Its one important element is respect and it comes through obtaining inner peace.”

I’m not much for sound bites.  I don’t even like “Yes, we can!”  I mean, “Yes, we can  . . . do what?”  But when the sound bite boils down to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”  These sound bites work. 

I’m having a tough time getting there though.  This morning a guy at my gym seeing my Obama t-shirt came up to me and gleefully told me he could never vote for him.  Why?  Because his middle name is Hussein and he doesn’t wear a flag pin. Incidentally, the guy happens to raise huge amounts of money for his passionate cause:  stem cell research. Compassion is not what I felt.

Today, the last of the monks left and I’ll be sad not to catch glimpses of those cherubic faces in their glorious crimson and marigold robes. The final question to His Holiness was how we can fix our cantankerous, argumentative society. He answered by saying we need a sense of global responsibility; that the concept of war is outdated and the notion that religion, race or government separates us is absurd.  We need to stop demonizing.  “I leave tonight.  I leave it to you to create a more harmonious society.  I can only share my thoughts. Some people say I’m a living wolf, some say a God king.  Both are nonsense.  The truth is I’m a simple Buddhist monk.”
 
The Dalai Lama
 
Buddhist monk
 
The Physics Institute
 
The Music Tent
 
A West End Victorian
  
Aspen Art Museum
 
John Denver Park