Our morning started off with Senator Wyden, sans his twins from yesterday, together with Congressman David Wu and Darlene Hooley (sp?) addressing the Oregon delegation. Each did a wondeful job in emphasizing the importance of this election. I was tickled to be sitting next to former Gov. Barbara Roberts at breakfast. She strikes me as a very kind person as well as one of the all time greats in Oregon politics as you all know.
I headed into the City center a bit early today to attend the Faith Caucus. That was a neat experience as various clergy and rabbis from different backgrounds discussed how our faith informs many critical political issues, including poverty, health care, immigration, as well as reproductive issues. One speaker was a Catholic former congressman from Maryland who underscored Obama's approach to finding common ground in seeking to reduce unwanted pregnancies.
In my travels to and from the Pepsi Center today, I had good discussions with delegates from Arizona, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Each had their own stories, some of which sounded like ours in Southern Oregon. The Arizona delegate described his grassroots experience and it sounded just like mine. A kind elderly black North Carolina delegate shared a snack with me as well as his experience. I also talked to a member of our Oregon delegation who had been a delegate to every convention dating back to George McGovern in 1972. Gov. Barbara Roberts told me how her first political campaign was working for JFK's campaign in 1960. Isn't it neat to think that we have many future "Barbara Robertses" now working on their first campaign for Barack?
The speeches tonight? I thought Governor Schweizer from Montana stole the show with his plain talk and passion. Although Keynote Mark Warner gave his usual thoughtful and intelligent speech, Schweizer seemed more compelling. Of course, I didn't hear all of Warner's speech since it was interupted by a Charles Barkley sighting, Craig Robinson visiting our delegation, and future Oregon Senator Jeff Merkely coming into join us.
Other highlights were hearing JFK's righthand man Ted Sorenson compare JFK and Obama earlier in the day and hearing from the ordinary Americans like the lady who Barack spent a day doing her job in caring for an elderly man.
Special props should be given to Dennis Kucinich for waking up the crowd with this fiery "Wake Up America" speech. Later, when our Oregon delegation seemed a bit lackluster, I turned to them and said "Wake up Oregon!!". These people better get fired up or they will be hearing from me tommorrow night!
And what can you say about Hillary. She sees the big picture and gave an impassioned speech that will not soon be forgotten.
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