Here It Comes

Yesterday our joy at the proceedings here in Denver was tempered by news that a threatening email was sent to one of the members of our delegation, saying that all the black people of Maine were going to be killed. The perpetrator also sent the message to Gov. Baldacci's office. State police and Secret Service jumped on it, and a suspect was arrested last night.

Folks, it will get ugly. Be prepared. Go forth and work in hope and strength, but be ready. It's coming, and we will have to be strong, and better than them.

And on that note...Obama has to win. Must. If he doesn't win, he loses Secret Service protection. If he wins, he and his family get that for the rest of their lives.

Now for some fun inside baseball: While the roll call votes were being taken, I stood close to the CNN stage. James Carville, one of Hillary Clinotn's biggest supporters and advocates, was standing there surveying the crowd. I leaned over and said " Mr. Carville!" and extended my hand. He smiled, expecting a fan. As I shook his hand, I asked "Did you ever think it would come to this?" He lost his smile, looked away, and sat down.

Contrast that with Donna Brazile's response. Donna Brazile was an Al Gore campaign manager, and is currently a pundit for CNN. I first came across her in the 1984 Jesse Jackson campaign, and she was tough as nails then.

When Obama went over the top, she was on the edge of the CNN stage, pumping her fists, cheering loudly, whooping it up. She started leading cheers of "Yes We Can!" pointing back into the crowd, and generally carrying on. We locked eyes for a moment, and it was clear she was enjoying every bit of this. Then she had to scurry back into her chair so she could be the reserved pundit again.

If anybody was watching the roll call, they saw the usual bloviation of the delegation spokespeople as they rumble " The great stae of *****, home of the 1958 Junior Tiddlywink Champion Armadillos, proudly casts its votes for Candidate X!" This is a tradition, and people try to make the most of it.

Maine, however, took it to a whole new level. Our chair, John Knutsen, rambled on and on, losing track at one point and saying " Whatever.."...and rambled some more. It was somewhat embarrassing...unless you knew what was behind that performance. Originally the plan was for Illinois to pass on casting its votes, all the other states were to be skipped, and Hillary Clinton would announce from her delegation that all of NY's votes were to be cast for Obama, and would urge the convention to nominate Obama by acclaim.

But Hillary was late. So they went on to include other states. Just as Knutsen was about to go on, the phone rang, and the Obama campaign asked him "Can you talk for an extra couple of minutes?" So he had to fill in off the top of his head. Makes sense now, but at the time I thought " Great. We'll forever be known as the 'Whatever' state.