Emily’s List Gala, Hillary’s speech and more

By Jill Cooper

DENVER — We got off to a fine start this morning at the Albuquerque airport with lots of people recognizing Tom and guessing where we were going and wishing him luck. This is a good omen.

Denver is convention-crazy. Delegates and convention groupies and souvenir sellers and media trucks are everywhere. We heard there were lots of demonstrators, but all we saw were the SWAT teams getting ready, just in case.

In the afternoon I went with friends to the Emily’s List Gala which was sold out at 3,000 guests (the main speakers were Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama). Emily’s List has a huge impact on elections. Their slogan is, “When women vote, Democrats win.” I took this very seriously in 2004, but then why did we get George Bush? I think we have to say, “When women vote their best interests, Democrats win.”

Tom and I went to a party honoring Bill Richardson. More than just New Mexicans were there, which I take to be evidence of how important New Mexico will be in the upcoming election.

We got to the convention in time for speeches by a variety of governors (I liked Montana’s Brian Sweitzer best — “The petro dictators will never own American wind and sunshine!”) and the keynote by Mark Warner (probably not as memorable as Barack Obama in 2004). Then came the big speech by Hillary Clinton. She managed really well the difficult balance of honoring those who supported her while also giving a full-throated argument about why they should support Obama. She got huge applause for the line, “No way, no how, no McCain.” The New Mexico delegation has a great spot near the front, more people on the floor than in seats and lots of enthusiasm.

Tomorrow Tom speaks — looks like sometime early afternoon, late evening. If you text “MyTom” (69866), we’ll send you an alert to let you know when he’s about to speak.

Cooper is married to Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall. She is blogging on this site daily from this week’s convention.