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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The presidential election this year is a win-win for Montana, said Bob Brown of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Missoula.

Both candidates will enter the presidency with some knowledge of western issues, and maybe with Montana on their minds, said Brown, a Republican and former Montana Secretary of State, early Thursday. [more]

Trick-or-Vote

Among the regular sights in the political zone around the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week are zombies, vampires and other ghoulish creatures.

They're part of a growing youth campaign to get you to vote. [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]

"Get off your hind end!"

In a speech that started slow, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer got the packed house at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on its feet and screaming during the prime-time speeches Tuesday night.

"We need all of you to stand up," Schweitzer hollered. "Colorado, stand up! Florida, stand up! Pennsylvania, get off your hind end! In the cheap seats, stand up!" [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]

Montana at the Democratic National Convention

Wolf Point is a long way from anywhere, but the small Montana town on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation far on the windy flats of eastern Montana has a field office for Barack Obama.

When the Obama campaign telephoned Ryan Rusche, an Obama delegate and the county attorney there, asking how long it would take him to find office space, he replied, "About 15 minutes."

At noon Monday, Rusche and Jason Smith, of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes from the Flathead Indian Reservation, gathered with most of the rest of the 134 delegates from across Indian Country in a room in the Colorado Convention Center in Denver on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. [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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