I've arrived

Sunday Night. I’m in Denver where the chill of the humidity-free mountain air provides a much needed break from a sweaty summer in Durham. I’ll be headed to bed shortly so I can wake up at the crack of dawn to make it to breakfast with all the other North Carolina delegates (sponsored by AT&T I should note—Ill riff on the role of corporate sponsorship at the Convention in a later post). In the a.m. Ill pick up my Convention credential and head off for a day of activity. Lucky for me, a night owl who hates mornings, the convention is on Mountain time, which should make the early morning thing a little less arduous. (for those of you that read the Charlotte Observer, you may have noted that I had a not-so-brilliant quote about being annoyed by the 3am text from Obama announcing Biden as his VP choice—annoyed because it interrupted my sleep—note to self: random thoughts that spill out of my mouth to a reporter may actually make it to print). Tomorrow appears to be one of the slower days of the week, a nice pace to get things going but still filled with meetings, the Convention, and parties. In the morning I will head to a meeting held by “Unconventional Women”, not sure who they are exactly, other than a group of elected Democratic women talking about how to become an elected Democratic woman—perhaps a political future is in the offing? Doubtful, but one never knows, right? This meeting will be followed by 5 hours of the Convention, with a diverse set of speakers, and then off to a meeting/party/evening on Global Sustainability (sponsored by CH2MHill)—which I’m pretty pumped about.

So as I approach the Convention, my big questions are: (1) How or has the Democratic Party made this the most environmentally sustainable political convention in recent history—one of the goal’s of the Convention? (2) What environmental and energy topics are being discussed in the various forums? By whom? What policy positions are they supporting? and (3) What environmental organizations are either participating within the Convention process or protesting against it and what are their major points of concern? Tomorrow I hope to be able to start to answer some of these questions…….