My wife and I arrived in Denver for the Democratic convention this evening. The airport was swarming, and security downtown extraordinarily tight. Cops everywhere. On bicycles, on foot, in cars. Our driver told us the city had entirely sealed off several blocks of downtown this afternoon because two unclaimed packages were found on the street. Their contents, no surprise, proved to be innocuous.
We're staying in the same hotel Barack Obama will be using, and the security here is especially stringent. Indeed, we were even prevented from going to our room when we first arrived. Special credentials are required to use the lifts while the convention is in session, and the office handing out those credentials was closed when we got here. No one seemed able to locate anyone who might be able to rectify the situation. This is how Democrats manage conventions.
Eventually, once we established the impossible Catch-22 of being unable to show our credentials because the people who provide the credentials had disappeared off the face of the earth, someone else in authority arranged for us to ascend the lift in uncredentialed glory. This was a minor inconvenience, a delay of a mere 20 minutes or so, but it augurs ill for the more serious business tomorrow of trying to secure my press passes. I've now been to four political conventions in my life, and the press-pass-securing part of the process has never gone smoothly. Of course, they've all been Democratic conventions. Republicans, whatever their other flaws, are better at getting trains to run on time. At conventions, anyway; they haven't exactly been managing the government of the US with breathtaking efficiency lately.
Such gossip we've been able to pick up so far has largely concerned itself with the role Hillary Clinton will play at the convention. Rightly or wrongly, it's generally assumed that she will try to sabotage the Obama candidacy. But it's further assumed that she must accomplish this with a certain deftness, leaving no fingerprints, or else she will risk being blamed should he lose. Democrats are not in the mood to lose this election; they arguably are bringing more passion this year than any other election cycle in my lifetime. If Hillary is blamed for the loss, the party will not overlook it, and will not forgive it. I don't know if this analysis is right, but if Obama loses, I expect she will be blamed regardless. She has certainly allowed herself, and her people—yes, I'm talking about the big dog as well as some of her more rabid, cult-like supporters—to behave in a maliciously mischievous fashion.
But I suspect the gossip has the details wrong. I don't think she will do anything especially crass. Yes, she will have her name placed in nomination, already an indulgence that threatens to disrupt the proceedings. But my guess—and it's only a guess, based on absolutely no evidence—is that she will go to the podium before the roll-call vote and move that the nomination be made unanimous, by acclamation. There will be some booing, no doubt, from some of her hardcore supporters (the so-called PUMAs, Party Unity My Ass!), and there may even be scattershot demonstrations against, but the motion will certainly pass. And the crisis will have passed. I think this whole quadrille was probably negotiated several weeks ago.
But I'm taking a risk here. If I'm wrong, First Drafts readers will be aware of my mistake virtually in real time. That's the risk a blogger takes.
Erik Tarloff is a novelist and writer, and a former occasional speechwriter to Bill Clinton. Along with James Crabtree, he will be blogging for First Drafts from the Democratic convention in Denver this week
