By: E&P Staff Starting now, E&P will be providing items and reports from Denver, where the Democrats are meeting all week to officially nominate the Obama-Biden team.
The pieces will be provided by one of our current columnists, Maegan Carberry, and Charles Geraci, a former intern here who covered the 2004 GOP convention in New York. Geraci now works for The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah, a daily paper, and is one of 50 correspondents affiliated with MTV this election year as part of its "Choose or Lose" team.
So here are the first postings. Return for more later, updated from the top.
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TUESDAY 1 PM ET: Twenty-four hours into the DNC, I?ve been getting the lay of the land (which has been pretty interesting). It?s one of those limited-resources situations where there?s a plethora of political enthusiasts representing their various causes, and because you?re a liberal you have to pay attention to them.
For example, I experienced some progressive guilt yesterday when I went to Walgreens to buy some toothpaste and when I came out, I was immediately sandwiched between a help-the-homeless guy and an immigrants rights activist. I didn?t know whose pamphlet to take or who to listen to, and I really just wanted to get home to finish my writing. I wound up nodding and pretending to chase after the guys riding around the 16th Street Mall in an ?Impeach Bush? rickshaw.
And let?s talk about rickshaws. My previous experience with them consisted of that one episode of ?Seinfeld? when Kramer buys one to great disaster. Today, though, after walking for an hour to pick up my tickets to this week?s various parties, it was hot and I was sweating so badly that I commissioned a rickshaw driver. I?ve always thought it was a little weird to be pulled in a person-drawn contraption and I felt very ackward chit-chatting with my driver while I watched him peddle away. (Although I was getting quite a workout trying to hang on to my laptop and grip the safety bar so as not to fall out on a particularly steep incline en route to the convention center!)
The streets were just lulling to action this morning on my walk. Lot of Obama buttons and Yosi?s HOPE shirts. Some enthusiastic Nader supporters protesting in a park.
My pal, the brilliant Max and the Marginalized rocker-blogger, Max Bernstein, and I are stationed centrally in a lovely studio pad we found on Craigslist.
-- Maegan Carberry*
MONDAY 10:05 PM ET: Mike Littwin says he's working on "surviving" the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
The lead political columnist for the Rocky Mountain News has been busy the last few days -- interviewing Barack Obama, attending a protest in Denver and, of course, writing his columns.
"I'm working on surviving," he told E&P Monday. "That's the main thing I'm working on."
In a rather snarky column that ran in Monday's edition of the newspaper, Littwin found some humor in the over-hyped Sunday protests in Denver. "It was sort of funny to watch the city and the newspaper, which I think overreacted to the possibility of drama on the streets," Littwin said.
In Monday's column, Littwin wrote of the protest he attended, "This was the anti-confrontation confrontation. It was more like duty at Coors Field. You arrest a few drunks and sit back and watch the [baseball] game."
Littwin said he'll be writing daily columns during the convention. "I don't feel pressure," he said. "It's fun to have the whole media world looking at you."
The audio of Littwin's interview with Obama is up on the paper's Web site, rockymountainnews.com.
Of all the events this week, Littwin -- who is covering his fifth national political convention -- said he's most interested in Obama's Thursday speech, when he accepts the nomination of his party.
"He'll make the acceptance speech in front of 75,000 people at Invesco Field at Mile High, which is normally where we watch the Broncos, which are, in most cases, the most important story that happens in Denver," Littwin said. "But in this case, I think Barack Obama might even be a little more important than that."
Littwin said the Rocky Mountain News has hired staff from other Scripps Howard newspapers to help out this week, along with hiring several stringers. "It's stretching our resources to the full extent," he said. "For us, this is like Normandy. It's that big of a deal, and hopefully it will come out OK in the end."
-- Charles Geraci*
7:15 PM ET. While waiting my turn in the security line at the DNC, I made conversation with one of the Florida delegates. Her emotions going into the convention seemed a bit mixed, as she told me, "I have a front-row seat -- but only half a vote!"
-- Charles Geraci*
5:00 PM ET Arianna Huffington moderated a panel discussion at the SeaChange Ideas Forum this morning titled, "Who's Driving Whom? The Blogosphere vs. Mainstream Media." Panelists included Jonathan Alter, senior Editor and columnist for Newsweek Politics; Digby, founding blogger of Hullabaloo, and Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post's political blog, The Fix, and Greg Massai, CEO of Liberty Media Group.
The conversation was part of the SeaChange Ideas Forum discussion series and explored the hybrid nature of traditional and new media, the transition of advertising revenue to online outlets, whether news outlets will be able to adequately fund essential newsgathering costs, the limited ability of bloggers to fill the gap of traditional reporting as opposed to commentary, and an analysis of whether papers are taking on an editorial slant to preserve their brand identities.
-- Maegan Carberry*
4:00 PM ET. While walking around on the floor of the Pepsi Center--home to this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver-- there are a few things that stand out besides the blue carpet. The best seats in the house go to Illinois, whose delegates will be seated directly in front of the podium. The Delaware delegation has been moved from the far back to the very front, after Obama tapped Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden as his running mate. Other front row seats go to the convention's home state of Colorado, as well as Vermont, Florida and Indiana.
CNN has the most visible presence on the floor--not only a studio setup but also several correspondents reporting from the floor.
And the Kennedys have arrived. Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy--recently diagnosed with brain cancer -- may address the convention tonight. E&P also spotted Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy--daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. -- partying with friends Sunday night at the Bar Standard in Denver.
-- Charles Geraci
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