Excerpt: After today, I can confidently say that absent some act of god (or his apparent surrogate, Dubya) John Kerry will be winning this election. This statement is based on polling data I saw yesterday, but more importantly, the incredible unity and momentum of anti-Bush forces. One year ago I said the Democrats should take a leave of absense on the 2004 election. I was wrong!

What an incredibible day!

Here's the activity lists:

- DNC Youth Caucus
Featuring: pollster Salinda Lake(sp?), Art Alexakis from Everclear, President Jehmu Greene of Rock the Vote and former Newark city councillor Corey Booker, WWE wrestlers Mick Foley and Chris Nowinski from Smackdown the Vote

- DemocraticGAIN training
Featuring: James Carville and Stan Greenberg

- Young Democrats of America reception and world debut of Russell Simmons/Babyface music video advocating voting

- (Almost attended) the Black Comedy Marathon at the Roxy
Supposed to feature Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps, Adele Givens and Tommy Davidson

- Screening of documentary film about Fox News called "Outfoxed"

- Afterparty for soon-to-be Illinois Senator Barack Obama at downtown spot, Vinalia
Featuring: John Cusack and LOTS of dancing young dems

- C-SPAN viewing at home of Barak Obama's keynote speech to the convention
Featuring: Barack Obama, future president of the united states of america

So that was the overview. Here's the dirt.

After today, I can confidently say that absent some act of god (or his apparent surrogate, Dubya) John Kerry will be winning this election. This statement is based on polling data I saw yesterday, but more importantly, the incredible unity and momentum of anti-Bush forces. One year ago I said the Democrats should take a leave of absense on the 2004 election. I was wrong!

Let's get into the Youth Caucus first:
I'll try not to describe everything, cause I have to run to the Black Caucus in a few minutes. This session, though, was off the hook. SOme of my favorite moments...

Art Alexakis of Everclear singing "This Land is Your Land." But he wasn't just another celebrity face at the Convention. He's actually a DNC delegate from Oregon. That's just tight.

Mick Foley of WWE Smackdown the Vote surprised all of us with his hilarious partisan statements. STV is supposed to be a bipartisan get out the vote effort, but Foley strayed from the script. Some "wrastlin" fans may remember him as "Mankind," and he described the pressure on wrestlers to be careful how they influence children with their crazy moves. Mick's story explained a "three way cage battle" in which it was suggested the other two wrestlers would double team him.


Foley: "In a TV interview I said, 'Bring em on.' Little did I know such an impressionable person would be watching. I thought I was making fun of wrestling, not dictating foreign policy!"

For those who watch Fox News, Foley was referring to Dubya's horrible tauting of insurgents in Iraq to "bring em on" and kill US troops.

For the Smackdown perspective on the Convention, check out Chris Nowinski's Convention Notes

The other Youth Caucus highlight for me was seeing former Newark city councillor Corey Booker. He gave a rousing speech which nearly brough tears to the eyes of everyone in the room, including yours truly. Booker is famous for winning his seat by narrowly-beating an 16-year incumbent with his personal politicking technique of knocking on 40,000 doors. Yes. Fourty. Thousand. Doors. His speech was more of a story of the personal events that drove him to see politics as valuable, as he was assigned to help an elderly woman soon-to-be evicted because of draconian public housing rules which would force this grandmother out because her grandson was caught with drugs.


Ok, this report is taking too long. Gotta go right now, but I'll try to get back and enlighten readers on some of the other activities. Thanks for stopping by!