My Page: Richard Martin

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One Delegate's Story

Having finagled my way onto the floor of Invesco Field, I watched the address by Barack Obama with the South Dakota delegation, seated just to the right of the stage. There I met Cecelia Fire Thunder.

Chatting with Fire Thunder – an imposing woman of impressive bulk and a face that belongs on the side of a mountain – I didn't know her back story. She's a licensed nurse, she told me, with two sons and two granddaughters. She's from Kyle, S.D. and she was a Hillary supporter. Asked if she planned to vote for Obama, who was about to take the stage, she said "Of course. We're Democrats."
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Above the Convention

Bumping along at 7000 feet in a Cessna Citation, we could see below us Colorado's dirtiest power source – and its cleanest.

Below us to the west, near the Colorado-Wyoming border in northern Weld County, stood the Rawhide coal generating station, which provides much of the electricity for the booming towns of Fort Collins, Longmont, and Loveland. To the east lay long rows of white turbines making up the Ponnequin Wind Farm, Colorado's first, built starting in 1998.
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Oil & Gas Vs. Renewables

Tuesday night was Energy Night at the Democratic Convention, and a good night it was: while Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer blew the doors off the Pepsi Center with an impassioned plea to combat the "petrodictators" of the world, former Virginia governor Mark Warner, now running for Senate, delivered a lower-key, more reasoned argument for a balanced energy policy that includes limited new domestic production (including offshore drilling) and a sharp focus on shifting to renewables.

It was both good theater and sound thinking. But still, one has to wonder if the Democrats are really willing to muster the courage, and the votes, to push through a comprehensive energy policy that reduces dependence on fossil fuels, slows the advance of global climate change, and keeps gas and electricity affordable for most Americans. [more]

Convention Coverage Roundup

Brian Schweitzer: studmuffin. That was the conclusion of plenty of online commentators after last night's rousing speech at the DNC.

"I'd like to declare Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer the MVP of Tuesday night," eclipsing even Hillary Clinton's impassioned plea for party unity, writes Dayo Olapade on The New Republic's political blog, "The Plank." Wowing the assembled partisans, Schweitzer "could well be the Barack Obama of 2008," Olopade added. [more]

Driven Delegate

"I almost fit into this car," says Nate Vanderschaff, folding his 6'5" frame into his Rav4 EV, from Toyota. Pulling away from the curb, the small SUV purrs almost noiselessly, its electric engine emitting nothing into the atmosphere.

A Colorado delegate pledged to Obama, Vanderschaff is here at the DNC not just to cast his vote for the Democratic nominee but to evangelize for electric vehicles. He's putting on the EV Rolling Showcase, a promotional event designed to convince convention-goers that the future of cars is not just hybrid but plug-in. [more]

Power Politics

Shouting to make themselves heard over a clutch of leather-lunged McCain supporters at the Democratic Convention in Denver today, a group of House Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of CALIF, presented the case for a right-angle turn in direction for America's energy policy.

"The two oilmen in the White House for too long have pursued policies that have served Big Oil," declared Pelosi, "and not the needs of American consumers and taxpayers." [more]

The Veep Choice

Most delegates I spoke with this afternoon, on their way into the Pepsi Center, seemed to back the selection of Sen. Joe Biden as Barack Obama's running mate. That's no surprise: delegates tend to be bread-and-butter Democrats, and Biden, with his long Senate tenure, his reasoned voice on foreign policy and his inside-the-Beltway stature, is about as establishment Democrat as they come.

Biden didn't hurt himself by making his first stop in Denver a downtown BBQ joint. But that doesn't mean the Delaware senator is going to help Obama win the crucial Western swing states of Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. [more]

Blogging the Convention

Here's a hot tip for the Democratic presidential ticket in 2016: Van Jones.

Jones is not even a politician, at the moment: he's the founder and president of Green For All, an Oakland-based organization "dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." He also founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, three years after he graduated from Yale Law – which, as you might recall, is also the alma mater of two recent Democratic presidential candidates.
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Blogging the Convention

It's not often you get to meet an authentic political prisoner. That was the opportunity the Colorado delegation had this morning at the daily breakfast meeting at Denver's Grand Hyatt. Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, jailed for nearly a year on a questionable bribery conviction that is now being reviewed by the federal court of appeals, spoke to the assembled paty faithful. [more]

Convention Preview

I was sitting outside Pekoe teahouse on Saturday morning, sipping a chai, when I overheard a guy at the next table mention electromagnetic radiation, the Book of Relevations and Roswell. He described a scenario in which a race of powerful alien beings swept in from another part of the universe, briefly ruled our world and then determined the fate of our civilization, and disappeared, leaving only a few inscrutable clues to their time among us.

Oh, I realized, he must be talking about the Democratic National Convention! [more]

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