Wednesday, August 20, 2008

So, watcha doin for the DNC?

Oh, nothing much. How about you?

The Democratic National Convention is being held in Denver, starting in a few days. I was glad when Denver won the bid, in a vague, civic-pride sort of way and also because I bought the claims of the benefits to the city. But the fact that it's being held here doesn't make it any more accessible to me and other Denverites than it would be if it were being held a thousand miles away.

A small group of locals will get tickets to see Obama's acceptance speech in the (absurdly overpriced) football stadium (that the taxpayers let themselves be bullied into paying for, grr). The rest of us who want to watch the speech will watch it on TV. And get a better view of the speaker. We won't be able to tell our grandchildren that we were there -- although we could lie about that.

Streets will be closed. Buses will be rerouted. For all I know, uniformed gunmen with itchy trigger fingers will be stationed on rooftops, on the watch for non-uniformed gunmen with itchy trigger fingers. At least, that's the way it would work if this were a TV show. From that perspective, it's a bit of a bother.

But I'm still glad the DNC is being held here. I'm just not doing anything special for it, and I don't know anyone who is. I'll do something special in November: exercise my right to vote for Obama and against the creepy, wrinkly white dude. (I'm allowed to say that because I'm a white dude with wrinkles.) (But not creepy, I hope.)

4 comments:

Lahdeedah said...

My neighbor volunteered in the hopes she could get tickets... I'll have to ask if she got the tickets...

we're going to watch it on T.V!

David said...

Sensible of you.

Anonymous said...

Obama's speech was gorgeously written and delivered!

David said...

It was a great speech. You could say he hit it out of the ballpark, except that he was in a football stadium.

All in all, a great convention. Now I want a landslide Democratic victory in November -- Presidency, House, Senate, state-level elections. I really want to see the GOP ground into the dirt.