DemNotesBlog for Colorado Democrats by State Party First Vice Chair Dan Slater

“This was the best Convention in the history of the Democratic Party!” — Former DNC Chair Don Fowler.

At the DNC meeting on Friday morning, Don Fowler made the above comment, which really confirmed what I was hearing from so many other folks from around the country. Don Fowler knows the DNC — he’s led the state party in South Carolina (which is the job his wife, Carol Khare Fowler, now holds), and he was the Chair of the DNC for much of the Clinton years. He’s been to countless national conventions, so when he says something like that, you can bet he knows what he’s talking about.

My head was held high from the moment I arrived in Denver over a week ago. Everything looked beautiful, and everything felt comfortable. I spoke with a lot of delegates and state party officials, all of whom confirmed that Colorado was doing an amazing job hosting one of the biggest events in the history of this state.

I could not have been prouder to be a Colorado Democrat than I was last week. This thing started three years ago, in 2005, when we began forming the efforts to bring the Convention to Denver. Throughout, you may recall that we were told by an awful lot of “influential” people, both in Colorado and in Washington, that Denver had no chance. The DNC simply wouldn’t choose Denver. There was always some reason why we were supposed to quit; some reason why we needed to just put down the pens and stop working.

We never stopped.

Then, once the Convention was awarded to Denver, everybody started working. Those who said it couldn’t be done stopped being cynics and started being optimists. Shopkeepers, hotel managers, carpenters, laborers, caterers, bus drivers — everybody worked tirelessly to put our best foot forward. It didn’t matter if you were a Democrat or a Republican; Denver 2008 was too big for partisanship in Colorado.

People came out of the woodwork from across the West to volunteer. That’s not normal — in Minneapolis-St. Paul, they were still begging for volunteers last week. We had to start volunteer waiting lists several months ago because of the intense interest. And the volunteers, even if they ended up with a four-hour shift at a hotel in the Tech Center, were bursting with pride and generousity.

That’s the key: most delegates were simply unaware about how kind and welcoming Coloradans could be. And most — even if they’d been to Colorado before — were oblivious to exactly how beautiful and refined downtown Denver could be. Every hotel, every party, every meeting area — all of it — exceeded expectations. The Pepsi Center was transformed into one of the most stunning visual stages in the history of political conventions.

Denver turned out to be an ideal convention city. Unlike past conventions in places like Los Angeles, Boston, and Atlanta, Denver’s various hubs of hotels made for ideal delegation hubs, as well. The fact that over half of the delegates were able to stay downtown, within walking distance of the Pepsi Center and the Convention Center, was completely unheard of for many convention veterans. In Los Angeles, a two-hour bus ride from your hotel to the Staples Center was not uncommon. In Denver, the only thing making bus rides longer was traffic — not the distance.

Don’t get me wrong — while this was about as perfect as a convention could have been, there were still a few glitches. Like many, we found ourselves stuck in the mass of humanity leaving Invesco with inadequate directional instruction. But the reality was there weren’t a whole lot of dry eyes at Invesco by the end of that fantastic event.

This convention was all about the majesty of Colorado, and the humanity of the people of the Centennial State. Every citizen of this state should be proud of how we performed.

So, thank you, Colorado.

Now, it’s time to finish the job over the next two months.