"The hope rises again and the dream lives on . . . ." DNC chat

[gldstwmn]

On my way in, the Falun Gong practicing their morning Tai Chi:



Their silent protest:



I was at a party sponsored by Pepsi for the delegates. It kicked off around 1:00. There weren't a lot of people there. I started talking to a couple of delegates from Washington state who told me Hillary had called a meeting with her delegates for 1 o'clock and that the roll call vote had been moved up. I didn't know until I hit the street that Obama had been nominated. I saw Governor Ritter and Howard Dean's wife, Dr. Judy Steinberg.
I left around 4:30 and the streets were still hopping. There were cops, cops and more cops. There were police escorted motorcades. I have no idea who was in them. Here are some of the folks I ran into along the way:



Bush looks a bit like Nixon in this one.



The lone stoner dude. Hey, it was shortly after 4:20 so maybe his fellow demonstrators went for a smoke break.



These gals were calling themselves the Missile Dick Chicks. They said they were from Crawford, Texas.
I decided to turn west on to Blake St. and head toward the Pepsi Center and maybe a glimpse of Anderson Cooper. I got as close as I could without credentials. I ran into these people along the way:



Denver's finest along the same route that I saw the motorcade take.



Rednecks for Obama. God love 'em.

This nice lady gave me a Make Out not War sticker:





Whackaloons. The closer I got, the louder he spoke. I think there may have been spittle at the corners of his mouth.

[estranged4life]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Whackaloons. The closer I got, the louder he spoke. I think there may have been spittle at the corners of his mouth.

Obama is for "Dead Children", I am definitely voting for him now!!!

I wonder is Bush is for the "Brain Dead"???

[gldstwmn]

This guy was calling himself Pope Grope. I'm not sure what his agenda was. With that, I decided to head towards Union Station, where I knew that MSNBC had set up camp. This thing came driving by:



Union Pacific decided to bring in some vintage trains for the occasion:



And when I walked a little further I saw it:



MSNBC

Miss America was there:



And so was Chris Matthews! Here he is getting ready to interview Senator Jon Tester of Montana.



Then this nice lady from Code Pink came along and gave me a "I am a delegate for peace" sticker. Great outfit too.



I hung out and watched Chris Matthews do his interview. Then he came over and talked to us because the lady in front of me kept yelling "We know you vote Republican". He grinned a little and mouthed the words "So what" to her. He walked up to her and jokingly said "You're a loon aren't you?" It was too funny. the he had one of the staff come over and give us all t shirts and hats. I waited to see if I could get a glimpse of Keith Olbermann, who was doing his show on the second story of the that platfrom thingy. It was hot and I was ready to go. So I walked over the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Platte River and I 25 towards home. There I ran into the Renewable Energy Roadshow. Al Gore you are not forgotten:



The city was so full of people that for a minute I felt like I was in New York again. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time. there were a lot of people on bikes so I may ride down tomorrow morning and see what else I can see. Also, everyone was being cool and peaceful. It was a good vibe.

[strandinthewind]

^^

Love the pics and glad you had fun!

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by estranged4life

Obama is for "Dead Children", I am definitely voting for him now!!!

I wonder is Bush is for the "Brain Dead"???

Lolz.

[Steviefan49]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

This guy was calling himself Pope Grope. I'm not sure what his agenda was. With that, I decided to head towards Union Station, where I knew that MSNBC had set up camp. This thing came driving by:



Union Pacific decided to bring in some vintage trains for the occasion:



And when I walked a little further I saw it:



MSNBC

Miss America was there:



And so was Chris Matthews! Here he is getting ready to interview Governor Jon Tester of Montana.



Then this nice lady from Code Pink came along and gave me a "I am a delegate for peace" sticker. Great outfit too.



I hung out and watched Chris Matthews do his interview. Then he came over and talked to us because the lady in front of me kept yelling "We know you vote Republican". He grinned a little and mouthed the words "So what" to her. He walked up to her and jokingly said "You're a loon aren't you?" It was too funny. the he had one of the staff come over and give us all t shirts and hats. I waited to see if I could get a glimpse of Keith Olbermann, who was doing his show on the second story of the that platfrom thingy. It was hot and I was ready to go. So I walked over the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Platte River and I 25 towards home. There I ran into the Renewable Energy Roadshow. Al Gore you are not forgotten:



The city was so full of people that for a minute I felt like I was in New York again. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time. there were a lot of people on bikes so I may ride down tomorrow morning and see what else I can see. Also, everyone was being cool and peaceful. It was a good vibe.

Wow! How exciting is all this Chris?? You looked like you were having a BLAST!! Thanks for sharing all of this with us! You look cute in pink, and LOVE the gloves!

Hugs,

Arlene

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by iamnotafraid

ajm when people talk about how great our economy was under Clinton they always fail to mention that Clinton inherited an economy that was on a upswing. And when he left office it was on a downswing.

Well, Bush I had to saise taxes in 1990 to pay for the huge budget deficit caused by Ronald R. Thus, came the alleged upswing, which really wasn't anything to brag about. Nice try though

Here's an article on it http://www.americanprogress.org/issu...8/b134891.html -- I get the source, but I cite it for the raw data as I haven't time to pull all the cites.

Correcting A Picture In A Thousand Words

By Gene Sperling | August 5, 2004

On Wednesday August 4, the New York Times printed a chart constructed by former Treasury Secretary George P. Shultz which purported to illustrate the following: "President Clinton inherited prosperity; President Clinton bequeathed recession." Shultz's "Op-Chart" is extremely deceptive and misleading. The following memo explains the misleading components of his analysis and attempts to clarify the record:

1. The economy Clinton inherited: Shultz's contention that Clinton "inherited prosperity" is misleading; an objective assessment of late 1992 and early 1993 reveals a weak and highly uncertain economic environment.

Overall economic growth was extremely shaky in late 1992 and early 1993: GDP growth when President Clinton took office in the first quarter of 1993 was essentially flat – recorded as negative for most of the last decade, and revised to an extremely anemic 0.5 percent growth in a benchmark revision in December 2003. [BEA]

The unemployment rate stayed persistently high during 1992 and early 1993: Shultz's piece conveniently chose to ignore the unemployment rate, which hovered in the 7.6-7.8 percent range for much of 1992 and was at 7.3 percent when President Clinton took office. [BLS]

In some states unemployment was 10 percent or higher: For example, in West Virginia the unemployment rate in January 1993 was a whopping 11.1 percent and in California it was 9.7 percent. [BLS]

While job growth resumed in 1992, it was anemic: Average monthly job growth in 1992 was 118,000, half the 236,000 monthly job growth averaged for all eight years of the Clinton presidency. [BLS]

Many of the nation's top economic analysts concurred with the interpretation of a weak and uncertain economy in the second half of 1992:
James Cooper and Kathleen Madigan, Business Week: "To be sure, President-elect Bill Clinton inherits a struggling economy." [BusinessWeek 11/23/92
Bruce Steinberg, Merrill Lynch: "The economy is comatose and shows only the faintest signs of life right now." [Quoted in the Washington Post, 9/26/92]
Allen Sinai: "There are real signs here that the economy is sliding badly, surprisingly badly." [Quoted in the Washington Post, 9/26/92]
Fortune Magazine's Annual Economic Forecast: 11/2/92 "Everywhere executives are grumbling in disappointment – they had expected things to be better by now…The economy could be even weaker than the official figures show."
Washington Post, article by Steven Mufson and John Berry, 9/10/92: "Americans have been unable to mount a convincing economic recovery … the economy is crawling forward so slowly that it appears to be standing still … In some statistical categories .. there has even been a "triple dip."

2. The economy under President Clinton was exceptional, historic and record-breaking, not just the continuation of the status quo. Shultz's visual representation of the Clinton administration's economic record as somehow flat or ordinary is grossly misleading. President Clinton not only presided over the longest economic expansion in our nation's history, but broke from the previous period's trend and oversaw exceptional progress on nearly every major economic indicator:

Sustained income growth, broadly shared: After seeing family incomes stagnate from 1979-1993 (growing only 0.7 percent over the entire period) family incomes rose 17 percent – or more than $7,000 per family – from 1993-2000. This growth represented a clear break from the preceding 12 years, not the continuation of a trend.
In contrast to 1979-1993, when families in the bottom quintile saw their income decline by 13 percent in real terms, the period from 1993-2000 saw family incomes in the bottom quintile grow by 24 percent – faster than the median family. Again, the broadly shared quality of growth in the 1990s was fundamentally distinct from growth the 1980s.

23 million new jobs created – the most of any administration: The Clinton administration created more jobs than any administration in American history; 22.6 million, 92 percent of which were in the private sector.

Revived growth in manufacturing jobs: After losing 1.9 million manufacturing jobs under Presidents Reagan and Bush I, President Clinton oversaw manufacturing job growth of 303,000 from 1993-2000.

Near doubling of productivity growth: The fiscal discipline of the Clinton administration helped usher in a virtuous cycle of lower interest rates, stronger investment, and a shift in productivity growth that has been sustained in recent years. Between 1973 and 1995, productivity growth averaged 1.4 percent a year. Between 1995 and 2000, productivity growth accelerated to 2.5 percent a year, or nearly double the rate of the earlier period.

Unemployment to its lowest level in 30 years – below 5 percent for 43 straight months: The unemployment rate fell by 42 percent over the course of the Clinton presidency and remained below 5 percent from July 1997 to the end of Clinton's second term in January 2001. The 4 percent unemployment rate in 2000 – the lowest in over 30 years – stands in contrast to an average unemployment rate of 7.1 percent under Presidents Reagan and Bush I.

Record deficits turned to record surpluses: Under President Clinton, we went from a record nominal deficit of $290 billion in 1992 to the largest surplus in history – $236 billion in 2000. This dramatic fiscal turnaround was by no means a continuation of the status quo – In 1992, the Congressional Budget Office was projecting a $455 billion deficit in 2000.

3. Schultz distorts the recent recession and ignores the implications of his own chart:

Inaccurately portrays 2001 recession: Further underscoring the biased nature of his chart, Shultz incorrectly displays the most recent recession as beginning in January 2001 – the last month President Clinton was in office – rather in March 2001 as the independent NBER Recession Dating Committee has established.

Ignores the historic weakness of the current jobs recovery that his own chart displays: Shultz fails to acknowledge that by his own calculations, we are experiencing the weakest jobs recovery since the Great Depression:

For nearly two years after the recession officially ended in November 2001 our economy continued to lose jobs – something that has not happened since the 1930s.
The 1.4 million jobs created in the last year – the 20th to 31st months of the recovery – represent the weakest job growth for this period of any sustained recovery since before World War II.

As a result, we are 7 million jobs behind where the Council of Economic Advisers projected we would be – a projection made in February 2002, after 9/11 and the recession. [Council of Economic Advisers, "2002 Economic Report of the President," February 2002.]

_____________________________________________

Again, any growth, and there was a little, came after a tax raise. That does not in any way support you all's arguments

Look I could care a less about Clinton, but the facts clearly state the economy soared in his Presidency and although when W took office the country was headed into a downturn, according to most economists, the spark caused by W"s tax cuts was quickly extinguished by W's insane spending of borrowed money.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

^^

Love the pics and glad you had fun!

It really was a lot of fun. I'll have pix from the nomination speech tomorrow night.

[BombaySapphire3]

thanks for all the great and some rather scary photos..wish I could have been there!

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by Steviefan49

Wow! How exciting is all this Chris?? You looked like you were having a BLAST!! Thanks for sharing all of this with us! You look cute in pink, and LOVE the gloves!

Hugs,

Arlene

Lol. That's not me.

[estranged4life]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Lol. That's not me.

God, Allah, Manny - Moe and Jack that the lady in pink looks like my older sister, Who was born in Denver (As were 2 more of my older siblings, lucky dogs)

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

It really was a lot of fun. I'll have pix from the nomination speech tomorrow night.

Is that the same camera we bought in Madison and then promply got a little lost, though not as bad as In the Motor City (hambuger and a pee anyone )

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Is that the same camera we bought in Madison and then promply got a little lost, though not as bad as In the Motor City (hambuger and a pee anyone )

That's the one. Takes a lickin and keeps on tickin'.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

That's the one. Takes a lickin and keeps on tickin'.

Lord Child - That thing has travelled the country! Remember me trying in a drunken stupor to make it do something in Vegas

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

thanks for all the great and some rather scary photos..wish I could have been there!

I wish all of our politically aware Ledgies could be here. You guys would love it. Sorry about the scary photos. I was going to walk right past abortion guy but couldn't help but photograph that nutty banner. I did blow off the guy who was trying to hand me a McCain sticker in favor of Code Pink. He grumbled to the Code Pink lady "She'll talk to you but she won't talk to me."