The DNC: The Convention is Over But the Connections Continue

Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck the final gavel of the Democratic National  Convention last night, signaling an immediate and inevitable end to  the four days of frenzied activity, intense emotion, and the constant  sense that what you are doing matters.  Quite frankly, I'm relieved it  is over.  There is only so much exhilaration a person can take all at  once.

I spent the night last night with old friends who live in Denver. This  morning, they shared with me this reaction from a neighbor to Obama's  speech: "I didn't like the speech. I mean, why should we help the poor?"

Ahem.

What a lovely opportunity to discuss the role of government from a  Democrat's perspective, that is if you can stomach any further  engagement with one so minded.  And of course, you have to engage  because hearts and minds don't change any other way. Still, it was  trying if not alarming, leaving my friend to contemplate why she is  living where she is living and how in 2008 we still have so far to go.

From my friend's house I came to the   Denver airport which seems to  have mopped itself up from the flood of visitors that came in for the  Convention.  I was uncharacteristically early, so had some time for a  breather at the Food Court where I checked my much-neglected email,  and had the kind of fast food meal I don't let myself eat much anymore.

Quite deliberately, I wore an Obama t-shirt to the airport today. I  hoped to invite conversation by wearing it, and it served it's  intended purpose.  A woman named Genie came over to me with a wry  smile and said, "it was pretty great, huh?" A Political Director for  the SCIU union in Illinois, she is from Obama's home district and  proudly told me that her support pre-dated his senate run.

She then went on to tell me that her boss was a speaker at Invesco so  she and a few coworkers got tickets. As she stood in the long line  approaching the stadium last night, a guy walked by with a concert or  sporting event-style sign saying "I need a ticket." Though it had to  have been the hottest ticket on the planet, she just gave him one.  Later, when she was at guest services trying to recharge her cell  phone, she lamented to the clerk that she was up in the nosebleed  seats, and the clerk gave her a ticket in a better section. This kind 
of generosity kept paying itself forward throughout the event.

Genie, a Caucasian, told me that she was sitting with her male African  American coworker. At the end of Obama's speech, a White male stranger  came up to the coworker and gave him a full embrace. Then the stranger  pulled back, looked the coworker in the eye and said, "I didn't think  I would ever vote for a Black man."

This was a week for hearing that kind of thing, for watching people  step gingerly or leap across lines they had drawn, and to see them  seek --and usually find -- embrace on the other side.

Genie and I were soon joined in conversation by Randy, a baggage  worker here at the airport.  He asked us what we thought of McCain's  VP pick. And then Randy talked about how he usually gets three days  off in a row, and how he would use those days off to do voter  registration right here in Colorado.

That's what these final 67 days will be about. Talking to strangers,  crossing lines, reaching out, engaging.  All of it hard work, all of  it essential.

Something tells me there's more fast food in my future. But I hope  also more  people like Genie and Randy.

Comments

[Kristin]

Thanks so much for your great posts -- they've been a joy to read.

[Donna]

I am shocked by those who wonder why we should help those who are less fortunate than ourselves (especially when those people live comfortably in the upper classes). I assume this person also considers him or herself a Christian. I'm not, but even I know that Jesus preached a gospel of giving. I want to tell these people to read their Bibles.

[Donna]

And, besides being a Christian, I bet this person was a Republican. How the hell can the right justify pandering to religious fundamentalists, yet ignore the need to help the poor? There is such a disconnect there, and I simply don't get it.

[Interested American]

Wow, Donna... the prejudice in your statement is pretty sickening. You have no idea the person was a Christian or not, yet you assume it for the sake of a dramatic indictment of Christians and Republicans. That person certainly does not represent any Christian I have ever met, and no Republicans, either. Then again, I've only met a few thousand of each. I'm sure there are one or two of each that feel the way that person did. It just amazes me how many prejudicial statements get made on this site by liberal Democrats who claim such high-mindedness.