Fear and loathing at the Democratic National Convention '08
WEBN photographer and Emerson broadcast journalism major tells all, for better or worse
Alison Klein
Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: Opinion
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It was a journalist’s paradise, though, as I, along with sophomore Josh Miller, junior Kailani Koenig-Muenster, and second-year grad student Magdalena Parker, (all broadcast journalism majors) tried to fit in with the thousands of anchors, reporters and photographers racing all around. The thousand-dollar photo lenses surrounding me left me wide-eyed and with a strange feeling of disbelief that I was jockeying for position with some of the best photojournalists in the world.
It took a while to sink in: the fact that I wasn’t there for fun; this was the first strictly business trip I’d taken. Because, aside from the working press, the DNC was truly a 24-hour party. These were the most sleep-deprived, hungover, but overall jolly and excitable Democrats I’ve ever seen. And just when they were starting to recover from the night before, the next day’s parties were starting.
In reality, there were two conventions happening in Denver: a pageant that all the big-shots in Washington, D.C. threw for themselves and their affluent supporters, and a series of small, staged protests organized by the folks who didn’t think partying was the most constructive thing to do while the whole media circus engulfed Denver.
Instead of peacefully rallying Obama into the Oval Office, the youth of America (and the aging hippies) decided Denver’s streets were a prime spot to demonstrate their general displeasure with the state of the country. By the thousands, protesters of all ages paraded around downtown, with ever-present police following via horseback, bicycle, cruiser and foot.
On the Sunday before the convention began, the Denver-based protest group “Recreate ’68” staged the week’s first big protest to mark the anniversary of Chicago’s tumultuous DNC in 1968. After a few hours of rallying and speeches, they marched from the state capital to the Pepsi Center, where the actual convention was to take place. Down the street from the capital were Republican counter-protesters, waving “Thank You Troops” signs and blasting “Proud to be an American,” who were taunted by the onslaught of marchers as they passed by.
The protestors’ red, white and blue detritus stuck to the curbs of streets after the parade was over. I spotted a few observers, standing arms-crossed with gaping mouths. “This is not Denver,” one woman told me. And all this was before the convention had even begun.
The one group I didn’t spot in the march were the PUMAs (People United Means Action, or, winkingly, Political Unity My Ass) – the clan of pro-Hillary people that the pundits predicted would cause the biggest stir. We got word that the PUMA headquarters was a little office on the edge of downtown with bottled water, trail mix and free wireless internet. So off we went to set up shop and get to know what these people were about.
A couple hours later, Magdalena walked out of the house. “I can’t go back in there,” she said. The scene was about twenty 50-something ladies sipping cans of coke on the porch, and different media organizations milling about, conducting interviews with the Hillary-obsessers.
Diane Martinez, a self-proclaimed PUMA, offered to give us a lift in her Hillary-stickered minivan to the nearby diner to recharge before covering the next protest.
“I just can’t vote for Obama,” Martinez said. “I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m going to have to vote for McCain,” she said, as if bravely choosing the lesser of two evils. Inside the diner, the heavily-buttoned Martinez looked like a harlequin to the casual diners—they couldn’t stop staring at her now out-of-place Hillary garb. She and the other PUMAs seemed to share a sense of denial about what was going to happen Thursday evening.
Another pro-Clinton group, 18 Million Voices, is often lumped in with PUMA, but they more or less split after Clinton spoke on the second night of the convention. Both groups had marched together toward Invesco Field earlier that day, but by mid-afternoon the division widened, with 18 Million Voices on one end of the pro-Clinton spectrum and PUMA on the other.
18 Million Voices gathered on a hill overlooking Denver’s Cheesman Park and, in between acoustic folk songs, chattered about fundraising for a potential 2012 Clinton presidential bid. PUMA was still trying for 2008.
I met a fellow Boston media guru from the Phoenix at the PUMA house, who later warned me and the others of a rally a couple blocks away that was to take place that night. “Apparently they’re going to start making some arrests…getting the gas-masks on,” he said.
‘How do people even predict that kind of thing?’ I thought, ‘Is there just a feeling in the wind?’ It sure sounded intriguing though, and before the PUMAs could steal our attention again, police were sprinting to vans in navy-blue riot gear. We followed the vans on foot, gasping for breath in the mile-high city.
The pinnacle of the week for every convention participant (save, perhaps, the unrepentant PUMAs) was the last night: Obama’s speech at Invesco Field. By Wednesday, the senator was like Jaws, the titular character who doesn’t appear until the final act. Parties, pictures, news stories were everywhere; the entire political pageant was dedicated to him.
Luckily, by Thursday morning, the four of us had managed to make the right connections to get tickets along with 80,000 others shaking Invesco’s walls with their stomping feet. After weaving our way onto the floor of the field, I periodically looked up in disbelief at the largest, most diverse group of supporters I had ever seen – some of whom had paid upwards of $1,000 just to hear Obama speak.
One woman on the floor cut through the bluster and phoniness of protest, propaganda and party platform to what was at stake in Denver.
“It was a very emotional evening…overwhelming,” one woman told us. “And I pray to God that he will fulfill all his promises.”
Alison Klein is a senior broadcast journalism major and a contributor to the Beacon.
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