My roundup of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin convention
Warning: Extremely Long

Rally I couldn't go to the rally Friday afternoon outside the convention hotel. I was speaking a a graduation ceremony across town. But those who were there describe it as incredible. There should be video available soon--the campaign had a guy taping virtually everything. I invited guests to blog about it, but they're all as busy as I am catching up on their own lives that none of them were able to. If you were there, add your report to the comments below.

Anyway, press reports put the number of attendees at "over 200," Governor Dean estimated 300-350, and our people on the ground thought it maybe edged closer to 400. Dean gave his stump speech and apparently did very well--he's doing it without notes now, and that's an impressive thing.

Inside the Convention In the spirit of not turning this blog into a journal or a diary, I won't get into all the trials and tribulations of getting registered and everything. But once I was there and settled, I was able to look around. Basically, every single vertical surface was plastered in campaign signs. There were tables everywhere, and the straw poll going on. It was noisy, noisy, noisy, with people all over despite the fact that the main program was underway in the main ballroom.

By the time I got to the ballroom, Rep. Ron Kind was on the podium, waving a shovel all over the place. I immediately went to work for my guy, handing out signs. We consistently had to go back to the hospitality room for more signs, because it seems like everybody wanted one.

I kept going through Kind's speech, and finally found my wife and a seat--in the front row! Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton spoke next, and she introduced Governor Doyle. He was followed by Russ Feingold.

I have to say, as much as I love Howard Dean, there's a little piece of me that's sad Feingold isn't making a run for it this year. If the unthinkable happens and we don't have a winner next year, Russ is at the top of my list for 2008.

Feingold got his biggest applause on the populist issues--he voted NO on the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, he opposed FCC deregulation, and he wants the foreign relations committee--on which he sits--to investigate the Whopper's dissemblance leading up to the Iraq war.

The other thing that struck me as Feingold spoke was how much he sounded like Dean. It was as if he was delivering his own version of Dean's stump speech. I realize that to a certain extent all Democrats are going to say the same things on many of the same issues. But there were too many similarities for it to be mere coincidence.

Then the real show started.

Presidential Forum We were first informed that Al Sharpton had to send his regrets. He was performing the funeral that night for a staffer of his who had unexpectedly passed away. Luckily, we got Kucinich instead, because we needed some comic relief.

Gwen Graham-Logan spoke first in the place of her father, who was probably somewhere writing in his notebooks. (I kind of like Bob Graham; I shouldn't be so mean to him). She was surprisingly eloquent for an unpracticed speaker. She started her speech by saying that she had never spoken before to an audience larger than a PTA meeting. But she did very well and, as this is Wisconsin, had an old picture of her dad in his 4-H hat with a dairy cow. She harped on the point that Graham can win Florida. I've said it before and I'll say it again, that we don't need Florida--it would be nice, sure, but all we need is the Gore states plus one. Any one. She did mention Graham's other qualities--notably his intelligence committee work--but the strong impression she left was that we should vote for her dad so we can win Florida.

Dean was next. He came out to roaring applause--we were merely polite for Graham-Logan--and chants of "We Want Dean!" From the very beginning, he fired up the crowd. If I tried to describe it all, I would not be able to stop, so I'll just hit a few highlights. There were some canned moments--the "We Want Dean" chant is so he can use his "If you keep it up, you just might get him" line in response. And at some point, somebody threw him the "Give 'em hell, Howard" softball so he could knock it back with the old "As Harry Truman said, 'I just tell 'em the truth, and they think it's hell!'" line.

But mostly the whole thing was genuine. Three moments I want to cover: Dean went into his "I don't want to be divided" thing. That's something that was absolutely lacking from every other candidate's speech (and their platforms, as I do my research). He told the story that you've no doubt heard by now of the 80-year-old D-Day survivor veteran who thanked Dean, from his heart, for the Civil Unions law, as that veteran is gay. Dean asks, rightly, I think, how anyone can possibly look at that veteran, a man with unquestioned patriotism and loyalty who was willing to fight and die for his country, and want to deny that man the same rights other Americans have.

Second, he talked about health care, again going back to Truman. You could see that it is genuinely his true love, and I was glad to hear him talk about his Dr. Dynasaur program, which dramatically improved the health of children in Vermont. An elected Democrat I spoke to later at the convention told me that it was Dean's commitment to healthy children that first piqued his interest in the governor, and we both wished it was something Dean would tout more often, as I think it's a winner no mater who you talk to. Like the vet above, who can make the argument that we should deny health care to kids?

Finally, he pushed hard against the lies of the Whopper's iraq war (though he was careful never to day "lies") and he railed hard against the Whoppers agenda. That's where his greatest applause came from. He asked, as he had been asking for a week, "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" He went off on the tax cuts, the judicial nominees (again, the only candidate to bring that to the podium), and the foreign policy. In short, he hit just about every button in the room, and we all rallied behind him.

Dennis Kucinich spoke next. Someone described him once as a Marxist elf, and that seems about right. He yells too much--not that Dean doesn't yell, but Dean sounds passionate and Kucinich just sounds, well, like a scold. But the man has the right ideas on many things--or, rather, the left ideas. I think his tendency toward the far left adds to the discussion in these early months, but does nothing for us in the general election. But Kucinich's appearance at the convention, so close on the heels of his appearance at a big peace rally in Madison last month, tells me he thinks Wisconsin's winnable for him, even if someone like Gephardt is willing to write us off. That makes me feel good.

John Kerry spoke last. He said a lot of the right things, but he was not inspiring. It was clear, though, that he could be a frontrunner, and, as my second loyalty, after Dean, is "Anybody But Bush," I will vote for him if he's the nominee. But I think most of us in the hall agreed that he's not as impressive. As I said earlier, there was a far greater demand for Dean signs than we expected. And as Dean spoke, all of those signs were in the air, plus the pill-bottle rattles. Compare: John Kerry's team had left Kerry signs on every single chair in the convention hall, but during Kerry's speech, there were far fewer signs waving than during Dean's.

Kerry did highlight an important thing, which is his military service. Actually, the biggest crowd reaction seemed to come from the one Navy veteran who "wooo-hoooed" really loud when Kerry mentioned his navy service. That's an advantage I wish Dean had, and I think the Whopper's AWOL status during Vietnam won't make Dean less vulnerable on the service issue, although by rights it should (I mean, the Whopper managed to play better than Gore on that issue--Gore, who drove himself to New Jersey to take the place of some likely poor, minority draftee, and was kept out of action for seven months because of his father's Republican political enemies--don't get me started). I will point out one of the most frustrating things of the night, which was that the timekeeper for the speeches--who was seated near us in the front row--packed up her stopwatch and countdown materials during Kerry's speech, so Kerry got at least 15 minutes more than any other candidate! Arrgh!

That was that. Then came the hospitality rooms and more, but I need a break, so that will come in a later post. Sorry again for the length here--