The Denver Democratic Convention Blog

March 2008 Archives

Looking for Larry #4

Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 06:28:34 PM

Preston Peerman continues to hunt for Senator Larry Craig in the bathrooms at DIA. Here's his latest report:

Location: Men's room in the main DIA terminal, just to the right where passengers exit at the top of the escalator (in front of the fountain). I'm currently in the middle stall reviewing the leg behavior of the subject to the left of me.

This particular individual displays four distinct characteristics that help me guess the identity of the politico/celebrity in the stall.

Italian-made shoes: Mark Ferrandino? No, far too nice a shoe for a District 2 State Representative.

Aggressive Leg Reactions in a Forward Fashion: Doug Bruce? No, I think they're in session today. So it couldn't be him.

Size 6 Men's Shoe With "Lifts": Ah-Ha!!! Andrew Romanoff! No, he's in session today, too.

Leg Motion Completely Stops to a Halt: Heath Ledger? No, he's in the NYC coroner's offices.

Just heard a flush.

Stall door latch was just "flicked" to unlocked position.

Door creaks open (needs some WD40).

Damn! Wrong on all accounts. Budget Rent-a-Car desk clerk on bathroom break. -- Preston Peerman

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Delegating Denver #37 of 56: North Carolina

Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 12:41:23 PM

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North Carolina

Total Number of Delegates: 134
Pledged: 115
Unpledged: 19

How to Recognize a North Carolina Delegate:
Ahh, the Land of the Sky — such a lovely state, full of beautiful people who are impossible to understand. The only reason that John Edwards is not the 2008 Democratic National Convention nominee is because of the way he talks. No wonder Tar Heels get so momicked, they do so love to chew the fat! You might could say that they'll be the youngerns down to the convention who are fixin' to engage all y'all in some conversations but are frustrated that no one can undertstand them. They do speak the English language, interspersed with these common expressions: "Jeet yet?" means "Are you hungry?"; "Imonna star, yonta drink?" means "I'm going to the store. What flavor of Coke (orange, Sprite, Pepsi, etc.) would you like?" Although a seemingly courteous phrase, be wary of the ever-present passive-aggressive "Well, bless your/his/her heart," as it is usually followed by an insulting folksy wisecrack such as "But your hats done got your hair all goobered up" or "Too bad about your/his/her face." Both males and females wear brightly colored sweatsuit ensembles made by Winston-Salem-based Champion Sportswear. Be careful not to compliment delegates’ outfits by saying "How nice!," because that's the expressions North Carolinians use to say "Fuck you!"

Famous North Carolinians:
First American-born Anglo baby Virginia Dare; journalists Edward R. Murrow, David Brinkley, Charles Kuralt and Howard Cosell; storytellers Thomas Wolfe and Tom Robbins; cartoonist Nick Galifianakis; musicians Thelonious Monk, Roberta Flack, Doc Watson, John Coltrane, Funkadelic George Clinton, Tori Amos, Loudon Wainwright III, Ben Folds, Jo-Jo Hailey, Ryan Adams and all Archers of Loaf bandmembers; actors Andy Griffith, Pam Grier (Foxy Brown), Jaime Pressly (My Name Is Earl), Michael C. Hall (Dexter) and scream queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead; funnymen Zach Galifianakis and Gallagher.

Famous North Carolina Democrats:
Fourth first lady of the United States and snack-cake inventor Dolley
Madison; eleventh president of the United States James K. Polk; seventeenth president of the United States Andrew Johnson; Chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee Sam Ervin; 22nd White House chief of staff Erskine B. Bowles; first openly gay U.S. Senate candidate Jim Neal.

Famous North Carolinians With Denver Connections:
Nineteenth governor of Colorado Elias M. Ammons; Littleton forefather and street namesake Joseph W. Bowles; Colorado Open Lands board of directors member Russell B. Caldwell; Colorado Rockies minor-league coach Stu Cole; Hit & Run banjo player Andy Thorn.

State Nickname: The Tarheel State, The Turpentine State, The Old North State, Land of the Sky (official); The Mash the Button State, The Fertilizer State, Land of the Second-Hand Smoke (unofficial)
Population: 9,061,032
Racial Distribution: 68% white, 22% black, 1% Native American, 2% Asian, 7% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $28,235
Unemployment: 7%

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Vengeful Voters

Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 04:15:57 PM

Should Denver be hosting the Republican National Convention, too?

Assuming the Democrats can get their collective act together and actually nominate someone for the presidency, John McCain’s looking for a blue boost. Beyond the impending delegate-deadlock and superdelegate fiasco, another ominous sign for the Dems has appeared on the horizon. A recent Gallup poll, conducted with daily tracking from March 7-22, suggests that whoever emerges on top the donkey pile may be gifting voters to McCain. Because 19 percent of Democrats supporting Obama said they would vote for McCain over Hillary if Hillary was the nominee. Fully 28 percent of Democrats supporting Hillary said they would vote for McCain over Obama if Obama was the nominee.

So should McCain make a stopover in Denver next August to collect his cadre of vengeful voters?

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Looking for Larry #3

Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 08:45:08 AM

Preston Peerman just checked in with his latest investigation of DIA's restrooms, and his ongoing search for Larry Craig:

Location: DIA men's restroom across from the shoe-shine stand in the B concourse (just as you come up the escalator from the train). Due to the fact that I arrived two hours early for my flight, I had an ample amount of time to select a prime stall for potential "Larry viewing."

The first 30 minutes have been quite boring. Way too many skateboarding shoes were "coming and going" in the stalls to the left and right of me and I knew that Larry wouldn't be wearing something like that.

But wait... it looks as though a pair of freshly shined Allen Edmond shoes have just planted themselves on the floor in the stall to my left. I see a constant and heavy tap in the shoe and then a bag touches the floor for a just a second before it is removed from the painted concrete. I am 99% certain that the the side of the briefcase said "Boise"!!! Yes, the city that is the capital of the great state of Idaho. The tapping shoes, the verification of the state, it must be Larry!

I quickly exit the stall and position myself for a citizen's arrest (I have an official-looking, plastic badge that I bought at Mile High Flea Market that looks pretty intimidating).

I hear wipe, a zip, a flush, and the latch of the stall door click. Look out, Larry, we don't put up with that type of behavior in the Mile High City!

Oops.... I must have read the side of the briefcase wrong when I took my first glance. It was a "BOSE" poly bag from a pair of "QuietComfort Noise Cancelling headphones" purchased from the kiosk located across from the Great Steak Escape. I think I startled this fellow passenger as he must have had the tuned-out the world while listening to his IPOD in the stall with his new set of Bose headphones.

No other activity to report. ~ Preston Peerman

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McCain Wagons West

Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 03:12:36 PM

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Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain will make a Mile High stopover on Thursday, visiting the Denver Athletic Club for a meet and greet with his Colorado Finance Committee.

“Finance Committee” means “rich and/or powerful donors,” and “his” committee means “Romney and Giuliani’s.” It’s an old truism that Democrats fall in love with a candidate while Republicans fall in line, and no case is cut clearer than McCain’s hodgepodge, vagabond Colorado GOP contingent.

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Pundit Watch: Glenn Beck

Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 01:26:54 PM

Criticizing Glenn Beck is an unsatisfying thing.

Part of the reason for this is that it's so easy. After all, the guy is, like Limbaugh and Hannity before him, utterly untrained for what he's come to do. Rush was a sales rep; Sean was in construction; Glenn Beck was a Top-40 DJ. Three of the loudest voices for the new conservatism, all of whom discovered that making purposefully crude and obnoxious things was a quick way to the top of the right-wing talk-radio heap.

And what a heap it is.

Category: Pundit Watch
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Black is the New President, Bitch.

Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 01:13:05 PM

Tracy Morgan, of all people, finished it.

It, of course, being the political controversy surrounding Saturday Night Live's supposed support of Hillary Clinton. At least we can hope so, after a long round of puffed-up news surrounding the late-night institution and its supposedly sincere political soapboxery. We're years into an unnecessary war, the dollar's in the tank, people are losing their homes all over the place, and FOX News is still referred to as "news". And we have to spend time objecting to SNL?

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Delegating Denver #36 of 56: New York

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 08:56:38 AM

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New York

Total Number of Delegates: 282
Pledged: 232
Unpledged: 50

How to Recognize a New York Delegate:
After arguing about food and their governor's taste in call girls, New Yorkers spend a lot of time arguing about the personality split that divides upstate from downstate. The constant bickering and knocking of heads has even caused new governor David Paterson to call the state legislature the "least deliberative and most dysfunctional in the nation"! Well, after watching decades of New York-based television shows, from Facts of Life to Sex and the City, every other American is painfully aware of every personality trait of every character type of every Empire State resident. We know that downstaters live in deluxe apartments in the sky, that hot dogs make them lose control, and that for upstaters, the world never seems to be livin' up to their dreams. And we also know that downstaters dress like they live in London and wear a lot of black, while upstaters dress like they live in Wisconsin and wear a lot of plaid and gingham. Otherwise, they all act just alike! To spot a New Yorker, look for someone who is arguing. They love to argue, not because they are always right, but because everyone else is always wrong. About everything. All of the time. They are the original multi-taskers and will be the delegates who are trying to "hail cabs" and "get some service over here" while telling all within earshot about how much better everything is back in New York. They will also be the most curious delegates in Denver and won't be shy to ask questions. Their most frequent queries will be, "Where's the manager?" and "Do you expect me to eat this?"

Famous New Yorkers:
Artists Norman Rockwell and Rockwell Kent; writers Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Henry James, Ogden Nash, Norman Mailer and David Sedaris; actors Humphrey Bogart, James Caan, Billy Crudup, Tom Cruise, Claire Danes, Kirk Douglas, Jane Fonda, Ricki Lake, Ethel Merman, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Christopher Walken and Denzel Washington; comedians Woody Allen, Lucille Ball, Mel Brooks, George Burns, George Carlin, Fran Drescher, Chris Elliott, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Paul Reubens, Adam Sandler, Amy Sedaris, Jerry Seinfeld and Jon Stewart; musicians Christina Aguilera, Pat Benatar, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Kim Gordon, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, Jennifer Lopez, Laura Nyro, Joey Ramone, Lou Reed and Barbra Streisand; rappers 50 Cent, Big Daddy Kane, Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, Ja Rule, Jay-Z, LL Cool J, Mos Def, Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac; industry titans John D. Rockefeller and Donald Trump.

Famous New York Democrats:
32nd president of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt; senators Aaron Burr, Robert F. Kennedy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton; representatives William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Nita Lowey, Nydia Velasquez and Charles Rangel; first legally blind African-American governor David Paterson; former governor and newly disgraced emperor Eliot Spitzer.

Famous New Yorkers With Denver Connections:
Seventeenth vice president of the United States Schuyler Colfax; Colorado's first senators, Henry M. Teller and Jerome B. Chaffee; banker and railroad builder David Moffat; Colorado photographer William Henry Jackson; future 2nd District congresswoman Joan Fitz-Gerald; Quiznos founder James Lambatos; Qwest inside trader Joe Nacchio; News2 morning anchor Tom Green; News4 weatherman Ed Greene; 9News sports nerd Drew Soicher; Denver Nuggets small forward Carmelo Anthony; Common Era clotheshorse Debra Mazur.

State Nickname: The Empire State, The Knickerbocker State (official);
The Bickerknocker State, Da Gawdfadda State, Chock Full O' Nuts
(unofficial).
Population: 19,306,183
Racial Distribution: 59% white, 17% black, 1% Native American, 7%
Asian, 16% Hispanic
Per Capita Personal Income: $36,574
Unemployment: 6.3%


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Looking for Larry, #2

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 07:04:23 AM

Ever since the Idaho Statesman revealed that Senator Larry Craig had made the moves on a fellow Idaho politico at Denver International Airport, our Mr. seX, Preston Peerman, has been keeping his eyes open on his frequent trips out of DIA. Here's his latest report:

LOCATION: Main Concourse at DIA: I heard a "shuffle" that was of concern. Turns out to be a false alarm, as this gentleman suffers from Restless Leg Disorder. Hopefully he can ask his doctor what prescription options are available..

Over and out.

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Passport Privy: Wherein I Try to Hack My Own State Department File

Fri Mar 21, 2008 at 05:17:44 PM

It was pretty obvious from the outset that some sort of clandestine conspiracy run by the Bush Administration was sneaking a peek into Barack Obama’s passport file on hand with the State Department. The whole thing reeked of 1972—a paranoid party desperately collecting secrets and deep background on leading Democratic candidates—replacing agents poking around in a young, potentially-dangerous Teddy Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick files at the Library of Congress with “trainees” snooping in a young, potentially-dangerous Barack Obama’s passport.

But then the State Department did a search for other unauthorized accesses. And lo and behold, Hillary Clinton’s file had been breached in 2007. The conspiracy was growing more vast by the moment. A single headhunting mission was now a campaign of, in polite 1970’s politicking terminology, rat fucking. The explanation Assistant Secretary of State Sean McCormack offered was that a outside contractor, trained during the past summer to handle the backlog of passport applications, opened her file. “Usually in these training circumstances, people are encouraged to enter a family member's name, just for training purposes,” McCormack said in his daily press conference. “This person chose Senator Clinton's name. It was immediately recognized, they were immediately admonished.”

“Why, when you're sitting in a classroom and somebody tells you, ‘Use your name, use your mother's name, use your father's name as part of this training exercise in order to access and work with a file,’ and they choose to enter Senator Clinton's name, it's inexplicable,” he added.

A trainee. Inexplicable. Right. Just stop at the little people. You want us to believe this wasn’t an orchestrated effort to undercut the woman who was then the Democratic front-runner for the nomination? Dubious. Just plain Dubious.

Or not.

The State Department inquiry turned up another high-profile unauthorized access. John McCain. The, um, Republican front-runner. Now I know McCain’s never been the golden child of the GOP or its ardent right, and after the bare-knuckles-with-glass-shard-gloves 2000 South Carolina primary in which McCain was variously suggested to have fathered an illegitimate “black child” (his adopted Bangladeshi daughter) and ratted out his compatriots at the Hanoi Hilton, I wouldn’t put it past one of President Bush’s inner circle to try and check up on the man. But it doesn’t quite seem Watergatian, does it? I don’t recall Haldeman breaking into Ehrlichman’s house or Nixon sticking it to Gerald Ford. What makes matters even more confusing is McCormack’s statement that one of the same people who accessed Obama’s file got into McCain’s too. Is this a pan-party attack? A rogue spy? Or just a Lone (web)Gunman?

Perhaps I’m not thinking big enough. Does some devious foreign interest (possibly al Qaeda or France) want all of the information on both standard-bearers heading into November?

Or maybe this is a new domestic threat. Interesting, isn’t it, that Ralph Nader enters the fray and all of a sudden there are a whole bunch of breaches into the files of his immediate competitors? Don’t you think for his third run at the White House he would want a little something extra in the arsenal?

But all of this conjecture begs the question—what exactly is in a passport file? Who, particularly, would benefit from this unauthorized trainee access? Moreover, exactly who might be able to get into these files?

“And I have to tell you that we take very seriously the trust that is put in us in safeguarding American citizens' personal data,” McCormack said. “There's a trust relationship there when somebody hands over a passport application or any other sort of application to the U.S. government. We take that trust very seriously. And we try to put in place sophisticated and elaborate safeguards to make sure that if people break the rules -- and we don't want to see them break the rules -- but if people break the rules, that that's detected and that we can act to punish those people. And that holds not only for notable personalities, such as presidential candidates or any other notable people in American society, but for every citizen.”

So I call the State Department to break into my own file.

Category: The Donkey Show
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Democracy in Action

Fri Mar 21, 2008 at 06:50:18 AM

"I am not a member of any organized party -- I am a Democrat."

Representative Bob Gardner, a Republican, uttered Will Rogers's classic quote on Thursday, as the Statehouse was hurrying through business before the three-day Easter holiday.

But the line described the action a few blocks away even better, where, at the Webb Building, the city was trying -- again -- to complete its "transparent" permitting process for city parks before and during the Democratic National Convention in August. And despite Denver's postponing the lottery for two days to avoid any appearance of impropriety, protesters are already protesting the process -- because the DNC Host committee managed to draw the choice Civic Center park date of August 24.

Which is where, and when, Re-Create '68 wanted to start its anti-war march to the Pepsi Center -- and so Re-Create '68's Glenn Spagnuolo is now promising to take action.

Democracy in action. -- Patricia Calhoun

Category: The Donkey Show
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Lottery Lunacy

Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 02:21:23 PM

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To determine which groups get what public parks during the Democratic National Convention in August, the city of Denver held its first ever “extraordinary event” park permitting lottery yesterday afternoon – a cheery little raffle that I will be referring to from this point forward as the Clusterfuck of Democracy.

To be fair, it must be noted that the city was in a difficult position. Ever since last January, when Denver was chosen as the location for the Democratic confab, the cantankerous activist group Recreate 68 Alliance has been loudly proclaiming its intent to advocate major protests throughout the week, protests it hoped to stage in many of the city’s beautiful parks. Then right-wingers from the Christian Defense Coalition and anti-abortion group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust said that they, too, wanted to use parks near downtown for protest events. And don’t forget all the party-line Democrats, city boosters and chili cook-off folks interested in hosting high-profile shindigs in the same parks.



Category: The Donkey Show
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Bitch is the New Black

Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 10:24:48 AM

Tina Fey started it.

In her hosting role on the first Saturday Night Live back from the recent writers' strike, Tina Fey appeared on the "Weekend Update" segment and capped her piece on "Women's News" with a pro-Hillary rallying cry. And in recent weeks, that's led to a charge that perhaps SNL is pushing the Hillary candidacy—and worse, doing it overtly.

Category: The Donkey Show
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Speech in the City of Brotherly Love

Tue Mar 18, 2008 at 03:40:32 PM

It’s not often in America that a rich, white military man and a rich, white wife of a former president hang on a black man’s every word. It’s not often that a presidential candidate can call the Constitution stained but endowed with infinite future promise, can call this country’s citizens racist but their fears founded. It’s not often that the specter of American race relations is raised in a national forum outside of begrudging, guilty obligations for “national healing” following spectacle or tragedy.

So why-oh-why did Barack Obama, arguably the frontrunner for the highest office in the land, devote an entire speech to the imminently divisive subject of race?

Category: The Donkey Show
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Cry Fowl

Tue Mar 18, 2008 at 07:01:56 AM

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"Curses are like young chickens, they always come home to roost." That's a line from an 1810 potem by Robert Southey, and the first cited reference of the roosting-chicken term, although the story dates back to Chaucer.

On Tuesday morning, March 18, a little over an hour from the time of this writing, Barack Obama will be speaking in Pennsylvania on the subject of race -- and, not incidentally, the controversial statements of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose church Obama attended for two decades. In a clip of a September 2001 speech recently resurrected and now seen again, and again, around the world, Wright said that 9/11 showed that "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Soon thereafter, a certain controversial then-University of Colorado professor wrote an essay about 9/11 entitled "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," an essay that also took some time to surface, but ultimately led to the investigation that got Ward Churchill booted from CU for a variety of alleged violations, including plagiarism.

Conspiracy or coincidence? A fast Google search brings up many instances of the term being used, for a variety of sins.

But in a few hours, after Obama speaks, we may know who really rules the roost. -- Patricia Calhoun

Category: The Donkey Show
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