And a bit of good news- there are a couple girls in my small I've gotten to know a little, one from Florida and one from Missouri. They were downtown Denver tonight for dinner and ran into Reverend Leah Daughtry (one of our speakers) on the street. They stopped to talk to her and Daughty offered them credentials (tickets int0) Invesco Field for Obama's acceptance speech next Thursday. And not only did Daughtry offer the girls tickets, she generously gave them tickets so they could bring a few Washington Center friends...and they are giving me one! Needless to say, I'm really excited to have guaranteed entrance into the stadium.
Speaking of Invesco Field, we had a reception there last night in some fancy reception lounge for season ticket holders. There were some of the speakers, Regis staff and alumni, invited guests, and Washington Center participants and faculty leaders. I didn't network as much as I probably should have, but my roommate got one of her textbooks signed by Tom Cronin (the author) and is planning to bring it home to one of her political science professors. On the bus ride back, though, I sat next to Bob Loevy, the Republican speaker I disagreed with so much....I couldn't resist telling him how I'm an Iowa resident and really enjoy the attention the candidates pay to our state :). He still didn't really listen to anything I had to say- I guess I understand because when I googled him there were pages and pages of hits about his work and opinions. I told him that I was impressed by the search results, and we got into talking about this upcoming election and what the Democrats are doing wrong. Not a bad ride home :) -See pictures below post-
Yesterday we had speakers in charge of the Convention talk to us about more planning of the convention, and one of the more interesting points to me was that there will be 15,000 members of the media in Denver for the Convention, and there are delegates and politicians in 100 different hotels. Then we had Tom (T.R) Reid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.R._Reid) from NPR and the Washington Post speak about the media press core that follows candidates. In his career, he has covered 20 American Presidential Candidates and several foreign candidates for office. One of his funnier stories was about Howard Dean- apparently he wrote an article for the Washington Post about how Howard Dean has an explosive temper. Dean read the story several days later, and yelled at Reid for writing it. One of the earlier campaigns that he enjoyed was Bill Clinton's campaign for re-election to Arkansas governor, which shows how far back and how broad of stories he has written about.
I am also going to be working Security for at least part of the Convention at one of the venues, and we had an afternoon training session with the do's and don'ts of the job, but we're not allowed to talk about what we saw at the training or what we see at the Convention..at least not yet, I think we can talk about it after it ends but I will have to check. They explained there is a lot that happens at the Convention sites that isn't public knowledge at the time it happens, and as a precaution we're not allowed to talk about specifics of our job. sorry!
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Today we had morning speakers and the afternoon free. We heard from Elbra Wedgeworth, who started the bid for the Denver Convention in the fall of 2005. I thought about it and realized that in the fall of '05, I was still in high school, hadn't even read "Dreams from my Father" yet, and even some Illinois residents were skeptical because 'Obama' sounded too much like 'Osama'. But there was Ms. Wedgeworth, fighting to get a Democratic Convention in Denver in '08. Interesting.
Our second speaker was Agent David O'Connor, Special Agent in Charge with the Secret Service. He had a hard time with the question and answer portion because he really couldn't answer any specific questions people had. But he did talk about working for the Clintons and having to go to school, concerts, etc. with Chelsea Clinton which I liked, and spent a good amount of time reminding us that during the Convention, we will probably be in the safest city in America. He had a thick Boston accent, and this is his 6th Presidential Campaign; he's worked with Gore, Buchanan, Clinton, and G.W. Bush among others, and was one of the people who got to drive the pope mobile when the Pope came to New York City!!
PICTURES FROM WEDNESDAY at Invesco Field Reception:
Here is my small group in front of the stadium. Noteable-my Professor in back with the glasses and my friend James from Youth Parliment (London) is second to left with the purple tie.
Here are the Iowa students with Professor Covington
My roommate Katie and I on the steps out front, in front of a Broncos fountain
In the empty stadium...Unbelievably cool. A group of us just sat in this area in the seats and watched the sun set 
L to R- James, Ashley, Kyle, mysef
This is inside the recption...if you look closely, you can see the Denver skyline out the windows
Denver skyline
Ashley and Kyle waiting for the bus home
Some Washington Center students leaving Invesco to come back to Regis
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