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California

Total Number of Delegates: 441
Pledged: 370
Unpledged: 71

How to Recognize a California Delegate:
If the United States of America was a high school and the residents of each state represented a different clique, Californians would be considered the "cool kids," and California's Democratic delegates would be considered prom royalty. Californians will be the most gorgeous delegates in Denver, with the best haircuts, most stylish clothes and most beautiful smiles. And there will be many of them: Approximately one in every ten delegates at the 2008 convention will be from California. They will be very difficult to spot, however, because delegates from less cool states will crowd them like fame-crazed paparazzi. Large groups of delegates typically surround the Californians, especially if the outer delegates are from the primary California-worshiping states of Colorado, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee and Massachusetts.

Famous Californians:Monica Lewinsky, Ted Danson, Tom Hanks, William Randolph Hearst, Joan Didion, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, O.J. Simpson, Marilyn Monroe, Courtney Love, Candice Bergen, Beck, Ted Williams, Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Tiger Woods

Famous California Democrats: Ronald Reagan (until 1962), Pat Brown, Jerry Brown, Kathleen Brown, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Antonio Villaraigosa, Art Torres, Maxine
Waters, Henry Waxman and Gary Condit

Famous Californians with Denver Connections:
Robert Redford (CU-Boulder dropout), weatherwoman Kathy Sabine, Denver Broncos tight end Nate Jackson, Rocky Mountain News columnist Penny Parker, celebrity chef Sean Yontz

State Nickname: The Golden State
Population: 36,457,549
Racial Distribution: 44% white, 7% black, 12% Asian, 1% Native
American, 36% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $33,750
Unemployment: 7%

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Click here to see all of Kenny Be's previous cartoons.

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Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean blew into Denver mid-day Wednesday to kick off the one-year countdown to the Democratic National Convention. He stood on the sweltering concrete outside the Pepsi Center, along with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Gov. Bill Ritter to pump up hundreds of party loyalists, thank volunteers, shake hands and answer questions.

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With Howard Dean in town today to start the one-year countdown to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, I can finally reveal the secret that swung the DNC in this city’s direction:

Swingers.

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“When the Democrats finally get around to staging their national convention here next summer, they’ll discover an emerging dining scene long on diversity, short on superstar candidates and eager to shed its reputation as a culinary backwater.” That’s how Jerry Shriver starts his piece “Denver scales new epicurean heights” that ran in USA Today on July 20. “Increasingly, the national chain restaurants, the beloved brewpubs and the old-guard fine-dining temples such as Flagstaff House and Kevin Taylor are being joined by small-scale, ambitious places that embrace such national trends as seasonal/local/sustainable formats and regional ethnic cuisines.”

From there, he offers up snapshots of two Boulder restaurants – Frasca and Radda Trattoria – and three in Denver: Fruition, Deluxe and Sushi Sasa. All good choices, but when the Democrats descend next summer, the Denver trio are hardly going to serve as headquarters for the New York delegation. For starters, they’re tiny. Sushi Sasa is the largest of the bunch, and on Monday night the hip joint at 15th and Platte streets was overflowing with fans of chef/owner Wayne Conwell’s sushi creations; there wasn’t room for a single CNN camera or funny hat. And while Sushi Sasa and other sushi palaces like Sushi Den have given this region raw power, sushi hardly screams Denver.

No, when the Democrats arrive exactly a year from now, they’ll find there’s only one true regional cuisine, and it’s not the cheeseburger allegedly invented here. It’s green chile, Colorado style, that sometimes gooey, sometimes thin, sometimes green, sometimes orange, sometimes sweet, sometimes hot concoction that morphed from the roasted, chopped green chiles of New Mexico into this state’s unofficial food.

Every variation has its fan, and there are more promising candidates for the best green chile in town than there are for the Democratic presidential nomination. We’ll be rounding them up in the months to come; in the meantime, send in your nominations. Unlike in the last election, every vote counts! -- Patricia Calhoun

Arkansas
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Total Number of Delegates: 47
Pledged: 35
Unpledged: 12

How to Recognize an Arkansas Delegate:
Arkansas is the birthplace of Wal-Mart, and the huge discount retailer plays an important role in Razorback chic. Wal-Mart is where Arkansans go to buy their new T-shirts and camouflage pants for life's special occasions, such as graduations, weddings and funerals. Everyday fashion needs are met at the plethora of yard sales that range from the massive "Bargains Galore on 64" (a 160-mile-long yard sale held each August along U.S. 64 from Fort Smith to Beebe) to the single-house yard sales favored by Democratic senator "Yard Sale Blanche" Lincoln and her camera crew. Due to their love of locally based TCBY yogurt, Arkansans are always growing into their clothes. But as soon as the fit gets a little snug, the old clothes go back to the yard sale, and the cycle continues. This ability to move freely into the clothes of other people plays a significant role in Arkansan psychology. Like hermit crabs moving into abandoned shells, Arkansas Democrats easily adopt the issues and values of Republicans when their survival is essential.

Famous Arkansans:
Maya Angelou, Billy Bob Thornton, Scottie Pippen, Helen Gurley Brown, Harry Thomason, Daniel "Niles the Butler" Davis, Sam Walton, Johnny Cash, Al Green, John Grisham and Glen Campbell

Famous Arkansas Democrats:
President Bill Clinton, J. William Fulbright (scholarship), Dale Bumpers and Orval Faubus

Famous Arkansans With Denver Connections:
Denver Broncos Rod Smith and Cedric Cobbs; former Denver Convention & Visitors Bureau president and CEO Eugene Dilbeck

State Motto:
The People Rule (official)
The Natural State, The Razorback State (unofficial)
Population: 2,810,872
Racial Distribution: 78% white, 15% black, 1% Native American, 1%
Asian, 5% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $24,289 (minus Sam Walton's paycheck:
$16,904)

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Congressman Tom Tancredo’s fourth-place finish in last Saturday’s Iowa Straw Poll indicates that some people are actually taking him seriously as a candidate – and not just in this country. A few days earlier, protesters in Lahore, Pakistan, burned Tancredo in effigy, right alongside smoldering dummies of President George W. Bush and Senator Barack Obama. “Dath to Tancredo of America,” read one banner captured by an Associated Press photographer in the picture above.

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On Monday, Karl Rove – once described as President George Bush’s "political Svengali, Robespierre and wizard all rolled into one” – took himself out of the political picture. For now.
Rove had come a long way for a kid who was born in Denver and spent much of his childhood in the area, as he acknowledged after making an ill-advised wisecrack about the intellectual capabilities of a New Hampshire hamlet in late 2001.

"Were I ever to belittle small-town America, I would have to do a lot of explaining to my friends and neighbors in Golden, Arvada and Kokomo, Colorado," he wrote in an apology to the Berlin Daily Sun. "The places where I grew up."

Actually, he wouldn't have much explaining to do in Kokomo. The town, founded on the west side of Fremont Pass during an 1881 silver strike, was devastated early on by fire, then enjoyed a rebirth during the boom years of the Climax Molybdenum mine.

"As many as 100 to 200 persons live in the town, and a school operates through the winter," reported Perry Eberhart in his 1959 Guide to the Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps. But by 1965, the Rove family had moved on (Dad was a geologist), and the town was down to just nine voters, who decided to disincorporate Kokomo.

And in the early '70s, when Rove started his climb to the top of the GOP heap as the politically savvy executive director of the College Republicans, his old home town disappeared altogether: Kokomo is now buried under a pile of tailings from the Climax mine. Rove himself is unlikely to disappear as neatly. – Patricia Calhoun

Arizona

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Total Number of Delegates: 67
Pledged: 56
Unpledged: 11

How to Recognize an Arizona Delegate:
The Arizona Look is famous the world over. Just start with a pair of the definitive two-buckle, slip-on "Arizona" style of Birkenstock sandals and a pair of Arizona jeans from J.C. Penney. Female Arizonans top these basics with flowing, gypsy-sleeved cotton smocks cinched at the waist with a beaded belt that matches their dangling beaded earrings and multiple strands of beaded bracelets and necklaces. Male Arizonans wear cotton snap-down Western shirts and an optional sport coat, both in dark colors to accentuate their turquoise and silver bracelets, necklaces, belts and nut-brown tans. Underneath, all Arizonans, from Alice Cooper to John McCain, love to wear the latest thongs and g-strings from "Parr of Arizona."

Famous Arizonans:
Cochise, Geronimo, Cesar Chavez, Alice Cooper, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt and David Spade

Famous Arizona Democrats:
U.S. Rep. Morris K. Udall; Stewart "Clean Air Act" Udall (Secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations); Bruce Babbitt (Secretary of the Interior during the Clinton administration)

Famous Arizonans With Denver Connections:
Morris K. Udall played professional basketball with the Denver Nuggets for one year; Mark Udall (son of Morris K. Udall, was born in Tucson and is the current U.S. representative for Colorado District 2)

State Nickname: Grand Canyon State
Population: 6,166,318
Racial Distribution: 60% white, 3% black, 3% Asian, 5% Native
American, 29% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $25,500
Unemployment: 6%

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Now there’s one more perk to voting Democrat: a discount on your paint job. Patrick Nesvadba, a.k.a. “Patrick the Painter,” taped this sign to a LoDo lamppost recently, advertising 10 percent off to left-leaning folks.

“I think it sounds like a good idea to put your money where your mouth is, to put your beliefs on your sleeve,” he says.

Disgusted by the Enron scandal and the war in Iraq, Nesvadba changed his party affiliation six years ago and hasn’t looked back since. He even switched out his car for a bike and trailer as a protest against the war.

Nesvadba hasn’t given out any discounts on house paintings yet, and he says he won’t be verifying party affiliation — he’ll just take his clients’ word for it. Though he doesn’t talk politics with his customers, he may become even shrewder about his patrons.

“I might change that to not taking any Republicans at all. I have plenty of work so I can be choosy.”

-- Naomi Zeveloff

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Total Number of Delegates: 9
Pledged: 3
Unpledged: 6

How to Recognize an American Samoan Delegate:
As Pacific Islanders, American Samoans look like Hawaiians, only a lot more "gangsta." Their traditional nave-to-knee body tattoo (pe'a) is inked with a pig's tooth attached to a drumstick and takes about nine days to complete. The elaborate design looks like nude surfer shorts and is often complimented with trendy silver-capped front teeth "grillz." Cramped living spaces, family tradition and clan rules have always encouraged American Samoans to smile sweetly as they repress their anger and seek out objects on which to focus their rage. Perhaps this explains why so many American Samoans are professional football players. ESPN has estimated that an American Samoan boy is forty times more likely to play on an NFL team than his stateside counterpart. It's true! Traditional Polynesian dances help make these players nimble-footed. All American Samoans love singing and dancing, especially if it comes with a dinner buffet.

Famous American Samoans:
Margaret Mead researched Coming of Age in Samoa on the island of Tau; fighter pilot Toa'ale S. Mulitaupele; Legendary Tattoo Sisters Tilafaiga and Taema; warrior princess Lucy Lawless; football players Junior Seau, Joe Salave'a and Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala

Famous American Samoan Democrats:
Eni Fa'aua'a Hunkin Falaomavaega Jr., perhaps the United States’ only Democrat who is also a Mormon

Famous American Samoans With Denver Connections:
Denver Broncos defensive tackle Ma'a Junior Tanuvasa, the tenth Samoan to play in a Super Bowl. He helped his team defeat Green Bay 31-24 on January 25, 1998.

Territory Motto: In Samoa, God Is First
Population: 57,902
Racial Distribution: 2% white, 90% Samoan, 4% Tongan, 5% black, Asian
and Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $4,357
Unemployment: 30%

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Get ready for your close-up, Denver!

A few weeks ago, a Tonight show crew came through town, gathering footage for a segment that will air tonight, a preview of what delegates can expect when they come to town a year from now for the Democratic National Convention. The piece features some of the usual suspects, including Jack A. Weil, founder of Rockmount Ranchwear, inventor of the snap-button Western shirt and, at 106, the world’s oldest working CEO.

Jack A. – also known as “Papa Jack” (his son Jack B. is also in the business, as is grandson Steve) – is also featured in the current Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau “Know What the Locals Know” marketing campaign for the city But it wasn’t so very long ago that Papa Jack was an unsung hero in a city that was too self-conscious about its cow-town roots to actually celebrate something Western – much less promote it nationally.

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