Monday, August 25, 2008, 3:00p.m.

Barack was right to release his vice presidential pick to his supporters first, and I'm going to follow suit and release my convention speech to my supporters. I speak tomorrow at 5:14 p.m D.C.-time. I'll release my speech to you before then. Watch this page!

Soft and Strong Michelle Lifts the Roof Off

Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 2:15 p.m.

Michelle blew the roof off the Pepsi Center – soft and strong at the same time, which is hard to do, but she did it!  I would be surprised if Michelle didn’t boost bump Barack up a few points in the polls with that speech, which was just what the campaign needed.

From the Convention Floor 

Wednesday, August 27th, 2:00p.m.

Trends, we are now in day three of the convention and the Democrats are doing it just right, building to a crescendo – Michele’s Tour de force Monday night, and Hilary’s No McCain speech that topped the evening last night, wiping away all doubts that Barack is her candidate.  The crescendo continues to build tonight with the fiery Joe Biden and roll call of the states including DC, moving to the grand finanity with our Nominee on Thursday.  I’ll keep you posted.

 From the Convention Floor

Thursday, August 28, 2008 4:15 pm

Yesterday I got to make another push for D.C. voting rights during the roll call vote, when we were told it didn’t have to be short because the convention was running ahead of schedule.  Here is what I said: The District of Columbia home of 600,000 U S citizens who seek equal treatment as American citizens, who pay federal income taxes to support the government of the United States and have fought and died in e very war, including the war that established the United States of America, proudly cast 33 votes for the co-sponsor of the D.C. voting rights act, Barack Obama and proudly cast 7 votes for Hilary Clinton.

Other high points followed. Bill Clint’s brilliant speech was a thrill a moment because of he made the case for Barack’s election with unparalleled cogency and persuasiveness and because of his memorable throwaway lines, e.g., he was the warm up act for Joe Biden.  Bill is all the acts once he is on stage, but there were a number of speakers after him, avoiding invidious comparisons.  Joe Biden did not disappoint, entering as doting father of the son who introduced him, but rising to the attack, taking on McCain where it hurt.

Barack’s surprise entry after Biden’s speech on stage was a great tease for the true high point expected tonight when the nominee gets to make his own case.  

Stay tuned!

Daily Convention Journal Note Wind-Up

August 29th, 2008 6:43 p.m.

McCain’s pick for V.P. has just been announced but I am not going to let that displace last night’s once-in-a lifetime historic wind-up of the Democratic Convention. More on the McCain’s surprise later.

Barack continues to overwhelm expectations, especially last night, when he took on the criticisms of his candidacy one-on-one (not tough enough, not specific enough, not old enough, not moderate enough) and brilliantly disposed of each and every one to cheers usually reserved for football games. 

After sitting with our delegation in the Pepsi Center and speaking there, I could see that the move to the Invesco Stadium was a matter of necessity, not to feature Barack’s “celebrity.” Pepsi is a the smallest site I can remember for a Democratic convention.  Upon arrival at Invesco Stadium in a bus provided for members of Congress, I made my way to our delegation. After a while I went to the House “cloak room”, a converted suite with a view designed for people who pay good money for these boxes. However as the time for Barack’s speech approached, I headed back to the DC delegation to share the joy I knew was coming.  Alas, word came that the fire marshall had shut down the floor. Nothing is impossible, of course. My friend Bill Livingood, the House Sergeant at-arms walked me back to the floor. As you can imagine D.C. went crazy, along with the 80,000 other people.  Barack gave the crowd what they wanted and much more.