Headline News Robin Meade Used My Jesse Jackson Interview

I happened upon this cached page of the August 30th 2008 presentation of CNN Headline News Anchor Robin Meade's coverage of the DNC Convention, which featured my Jesse Jackson Interview.

Thanks Robin!

I also happened on CNN's presentation of my "Clinton argument" video, which is here, too.

Barack Obama Speech, Joe Biden, Fireworks Show Mark Event - Video

This video captures the amazing end of the Senator Barack Obama speech, with the emergence of Senator Joe Biden and an unexpected but stirring fireworks show.  More videos to come. 

Obama fans and delegates enjoyed the afternoon at Invesco Field in Denver

On the 28th of August, 2008, the Democratic party nominated U.S. Senator Barack Hussein Obama to be their endorsed candidate for President of the United States of America. The 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream..." speech on the mall in Washington D.C. now marks Denver, Colorado as another key site in the long march for racial equality in the U.S. - Senator Obama is bi-racial: his mother was a caucasian woman from Kansas, and his father an African from Kenya

It was a bright, warm, sunny afternoon in Denver. The line for admission streched for miles as excited attendees including the 6,000 conference delegates made their way into Invesco Field, the home of the Denver Broncos, to watch the last day of the Democratic Nominating Convention, culminating in Obama's acceptance speech.

First, some volunteers:

And no story about August 28th would be complete without comments from delegates. Two Minnesota Delegates took the time to comment on the goings-on, Mira Vats-Fournier of Faribault...

...and Minneapolis Mayor Raymond "R.T." Rybak, an early advocate of the draft-Obama movement, and the first big-city Mayor to announce his endorsement for Barack Obama's improbable candidacy.

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Invesco Field Speaking Schedule For Thursday, August 28th (Today)

From The DNCC via email to me


Time Shown as local – Denver, Colorado MST

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (LOCAL)

Live Performances (before gavel) 
Yonder Mountain String Band Performance
Jeff Austin, Adam Aijala, Ben Kaufmann, Dave Johnston

Voter Registration Presentation

Remarks
The Honorable Luis Gutierrez
Member of the US House of Representatives, Illinois

David Plouffe
Obama Campaign Manager

Ray Rivera
Obama State Director, Colorado

Call to Order
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Permanent Chair, Democratic National Convention
Member and Speaker of the US House of Representatives, California

Invocation
Rabbi David Saperstein
Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism – Washington, DC

Presentation of Colors
Disabled American Veterans

Pledge of Allegiance
Shawn Johnson
US Olympic Gymnast

National Anthem
Jennifer Hudson
Academy award-winning singer and Broadway performer

Welcome
Elbra Wedgeworth 
President/Chair, Denver Host Committee

Presentation of Resolutions
Democratic National Committee Vice-Chairs
Mark Brewer
The Honorable Linda Chavez-Thompson
The Honorable Mike Honda
The Honorable Lottie Shackelford
Susan Turnbull

Remarks
Honorable Bill Ritter, Jr.
Governor of Colorado

The Honorable Ed Perlmutter
Member of the US House of Representatives, Colorado

The Honorable John Salazar
Member of the US House of Representatives, Colorado

The Honorable Diana DeGette
Member of the US House of Representatives, Colorado

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM (LOCAL)

Video & Remarks 
The Honorable Howard Dean
Former Governor of Vermont
Chair of the Democratic Party

Video & Remarks: Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King 
The Honorable John Lewis
Member of the US House of Representatives, Georgia
Rev. Bernice King
Daughter of the late Dr. King
Martin Luther King III
Oldest son of the late Dr. King

Remarks
The Honorable Bill Richardson
Governor, New Mexico

Live Performances
will.i.am 
Accompanied by John Legend (piano), Agape Choir, and band

Sheryl Crow
Singer/songwriter

Remarks
Ray Rivera
Obama State Director, Colorado

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM (LOCAL)

Remarks
The Honorable Jan Schakowsky
Member of the US House of Representatives, Illinois

The Honorable Mark Udall
Member of the US House of Representatives, Colorado

The Honorable Tim Kaine
Governor of Virginia

Live Performance
Stevie Wonder    

Remarks
The Honorable Al Gore
Former Vice President of the United States

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (LOCAL)

Remarks
John Kuniholm
Wounded Iraq veteran

Live Performance
Michael McDonald
Singer/songwriter

Remarks
Susan Eisenhower
Granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Retired Generals Tribute
Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration (Ret)
Accompanied by additional generals

American Voices Program
Roy Gross
Monica Early
Wes Moore
Janet Lynn Monacco
Nate Flick
Teresa Asenap
Pamela Cash-Roper
Barney Smith

Remarks
The Honorable Dick Durbin
US Senator, Illinois

8:00 PM – 9:00 PM (LOCAL)

Video/Remarks
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA
DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

Benediction
Pastor Joel Hunter
Senior Pastor of Northland in Central Florida

Adjournment
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Permanent Chair, Democratic National Convention

Zennie Abraham at DNC Convention On CNN iReport After Biden Speech

Show Obama you approve of his change to DNC fund-raising

Obama has persuaded the DNC not to accept money from PACs or registered lobbyists. Show the politicians you approve - go to the DNC's "no more lobbyists" fund-raising page now and give them a little bump.

Tell them you're one of those "FOB's" Even $5 today sends a huge signal to the party, and to DC in general.

Say what? "What's an FOB? Friend of Barack, of course.

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The Four Michigan Delegates Obama Now Has Didn't Belong To Clinton To Start

The Four Michigan Delegates Obama Now Has Didn't Belong To Clinton To Start

At the historic DNC Rules Committee of Saturday May 31, 2008, both Florida and Michigan delegates were seated but with 50 percent of the common voting power each and with Senator Clinton receiving 69 delegates and Senator Obama gaining 59 delegates. The total number is 128 delegates, so the 50 percent split mark would be 64 delegates.

The Clinton camp, lead by Senior Campaign Advisor Harold Ickes, claims that they were forced to give 4 delegates to Senator Obama. Before we take on their claim, let's give it a closer look.

The charge of Ickes and others, like Clinton campaign supporter Lanny Davis, is that Clinton should have gotten 73 delegates and "uncommitted" 55. When they didn't get their way, Ickes, claiming to speak for Senator Clinton, but really, I think got carried away, said they were going to take their fight to the DNC Convention.



They will lose the fight again if they do.

The reason is that Senator Clinton kept her name on the Michigan ballot, whereas Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, Governor Bill Richardson, and the other Democratic Presidential candidates took their name off the ballot, because they, and Senator Clinton, knew and admitted that the "Michigan primary would not count."

The remainder was the "uncommitted" vote, which, when the actual Michigan primary was held against DNC rules -- which told the state not to hold its primary ahead of the schedule orginally set for it by and with the DNC -- became an unusually large percentage of the vote, something like 30 percent of the total.

The Clinton people base their delegate estimate on that actual voting outcome, and say that the legitimacy of the Michigan process rests in the 600,000 people who voted in that state. That's the basis for the anger of some Clinton people like Ickes. And here's the major problem.

The delegates never actually belonged to the Clinton campaign, but to the DNC, because Michigan was stripped of its delegates by the DNC, which the DNC Rules Committee has the power to do, and did.

Because of that fact, the DNC Rules Committee could come up with any scenario they could and had the votes to pass, and that's what happened. The Rules Committee could have elected to do absolutely nothing and have a "zero-delegate" outcome, which means Senator Clinton would have no delegates seated from Michigan. Those delegates would be allocated by the DNC because, again, the DNC stripped Michigan of its delegates to start with.

And regarding the 600,000 voters, there's a great argument and study that suggests as many as 1 million people did not vote in Michigan because they were under the impression the primary would not count by the view of the DNC. And they were right. The DNC stripped Michigan of delegates.

Because of this, delegates were malleable by the DNC. In other words, because Michigan was stripped of delegates, the DNC could give life to and then shape and mold the delegate count and split as it chose to do so, and it did just that.

The DNC was well within its right to do what it did, and Senator Clinton in reality had no right to any number of delegates. She, like the other candidates including Senator Obama, was at the mercy of the DNC Rules Committee.

Harold Ickes knows this, and admitted on today's Meet The Press show with Tim Russert, that the reason the Clinton people and Senator Clinton said that they knew Michigan wasn't going to count. Here's what Ickes said on MTP today:

MR. ICKES: Michigan was, in fact, a real primary. Six hundred thousand people voted, Tim, compared, compared, compared to 160,000 in '04, which had a high--which had a real, live primary as well.

MR. RUSSERT: Then why did Senator Clinton say it wasn't going to count for anything?

MR. ICKES: I think at that time people were focused on Super Tuesday, and a lot of us did not feel that it was going to go beyond that.

Wow.

Think about that. I also can't believe Tim Russert didn't hammer Ickes on that statement because Harold just admitted on national television that the reason Clinton didn't concern herself with "defending Michigan" at the time was really because they didn't think they were going to need the delegates to win.

Wow.

So now that they're counting every delegate from here to Mars, suddenly challenging DNC rules and working some weird form of Jedi-mind trick on hapless political pundits , Michigan suddenly counts and the count must favor them.

That's not the way it works. Here's the bottom line: Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates, the DNC thus had the right to create delegates and shape and mold the delegste split, and as it turned out Senator Obama had the votes in the DNC Rules Committee -- including from Clinton supporters -- to achieve the outcome we see before us now.

End game.

Donna Brazile Tells Jim Blanchard You Gotta Play By The Rules At DNC Rules Committee Meeting

CNN Contributor and undeclared Democratic Superdelegate Donna Brazile tells Clinton supporter and former Governor Jim Blanchard that her "mama told her you gotta play by the rules" in response to his speech on seating delegates in a way that favors Senator Clinton.

It was long believed that Brazile favored Hillary Clinton but any movement by Brazile in Clinton's favor was destroyed long ago by the antics of Clinton supporters sending nasty emails to the Dem power-broker regarding an assumed pro-Obama stance. Moreover, Brazile has not been pleased with some of the racially charged campaigning by Clinton and her staff.

Given the mic, Brazile reminded us all that the reason this meeting of the DNC Rules Committee was called is that both Florida and Michigan did not play by the rules set for by the DNC Rules Committee last year.

Zennie's Zeitgeist Blog Credentialed For 2008 Democratic Convention

I just saw the news in a weird way: checking our blog traffic, which I do regularly. In looking at a link from the blog "Demconwatch" it took me to a story on blogs approved for the historic 2008 Democratic Convention, and to the DNC Page itself. To cut to this chase, this blog is on the list! Yippee!

In other words we're going to be brings you both live and video blog coverage from the floor of the 2008 Democratic Convention. It also means a milestone in the assent of our blogs as a business unit of Sports Business Simulations and is major proof that I made the right bet in 2003 when I determined to establish a writer's group called SBS Personalities and in 2005 when I first started this blog network.

All I can say is thanks to Drew at the DNC, and thanks to the DNC. We -- Ashley, Tom, Dave, and myself -- are excited!

Native American Superdelegate Endorses Barack Obama

Kalyn Free...

is a superdelegate and at-large member of the Democratic National Committee. Free, who has endorsed Senator Barack Obama's bid for the nomination of the Democratic party today, is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and the founder and President of Indigenous Democratic Network's (INDN) List, an organization dedicated to training and recruiting Native American political candidates. Obama has shown considerable sensitivity to the issues of First/Native Americans, and appears to be the only candidate with a Tribal Leaders Steering Committee actively participating on the campaign.

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Florida Lawmakers To Sue DNC Over Florida Primary

The Florida Primary is proving to be a thorn in the side of the Democratic National Committee, which now has to deal with a lawsuit from Florida lawmakers over the matter of the DNC's blocking of seating their delegates because the primary was held on the 29th of January, earlier than party rules pemitted.

I still think the best way is to just split them 50-50. As it stands now, there's so much time - consuming back and forth talk that by the point an agreement is reached on a revote, it will be too late to have a DNC-backed revote.