DNC Report: The Aftermath
Posted on | August 30, 2008 at 4:58 pm | 4 Comments
Lessons learned from the Democratic National Convention being hosted in my town in the year 2008:
- Protesters are kind of a sorry lot these days. Where were all the riots?
- The commute was actually better during the convention, probably because a lot of people were staying off the roads in anticipation of closures and such. As soon as the convention was over, things returned to “normal”. Friday afternoon was pure chaos on the streets downtown because of the starts of Taste Of Colorado and Sniagrab.
- Invesco Field sure holds a lot of people when teams aren’t playing on the field.
- People will do almost anything to catch a glimpse of a celebrity.
- I expected there to be a lot of bank robberies and other crimes during the convention, since all the police in the metro area seemed to be concentrated downtown, and I’m surprised that doesn’t appear to be the case.
- I have no doubt a lot of downtown businesses benefited greatly from the massive influx of visitors to the area. People like to party. And Denver got a lot of decent national exposure. So overall, it looks like a win for our fair city.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 60°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Here Comes A City” (The Go-Betweens)
- “Something In You” (The Orange Peels)
- “I Saw Jill” (Palindromes)
- “We Were Wrong” (Audible)
- “The Clock” (Thom Yorke)
- “Wild Miracle” (Pleasure Thieves)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “coke phobias”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: None.
Category: General
Comments
4 Responses to “DNC Report: The Aftermath”
August 30th, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
> Where were all the riots?
Under the boots of the riot police, I’d venture to guess.
Maybe holding the Republican convention in a ‘blue state’ might generate a bit more action? (I know Colorado’s usually called a red state, but Denver’s blue all the way)
August 30th, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
I can’t imagine Baltimore holding a convention. Too close to home for many of the politicians.
August 31st, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
And someone might confuse their trophy wives for the local prostitutia – and man, that could get ugly.
September 1st, 2008 @ 1:30 am
Infk — you are both right and wrong [firedoglake.com]
Also, Minnesota isn’t quite as Blue as one may think. While it is true that many a liberal icon such as Humphry, McCarthy, Mondale, and Wellstone has hailed from The Frozen Tundra, most of the governors of the state have been IR, as have a significant number of US Senators. Right now the senate positions are split between Republican (Norm Coleman) and a Democrat (Amy Klobuchar), for all of the ’80’s they were both held by IR’s.
And don’t forget, Minnesota elected Jesse Ventura as governor. That’s a very special kind of insanity that most traditional Blue states wouldn’t ever indulge.
About the only elected position that has been solidly DFL for like the past 36 years has been the mayor of St. Paul — so long as you don’t count the Traitor Norm Coleman who switched parties from DFL to Republican half way through his term as mayor.
“But wait”, you say. “That’s Blue! It still could happen!”
Well, no. You see, there’s a reason why they chose St. Paul over a more cosmopolitan city such as Minneapolis. Had the GOP decided on that noisy city across the river, there’s doubtless be Seattle WTO-scale riots for sure. But this is St. Paul we’re talking about. The worst that will happen is the Lefty’s will gather in south bar at O’Garas the Righty’s in the north bar, and they’ll snarl at each other in the restroom. And that will be that.
(There was, maybe still is, this great office supply store on the Nicollette Mall in downtown Minneapolis that had a bunch of clocks set to times in various cities around the world. The clock for St. Paul, though, was 20 minutes behind the rest of them…)
Nope. No riots in St. Paul. Sorry.