DENVER- Spielberg! Affleck! J.Lo! They were among the Hollywood celebrities attending events in Denver as the Democratic National Convention nominated Barack Obama as the party’s presidential candidate.

Steven Spielberg, who directed a short film that shown Wednesday at the convention, was spotted entering the Pepsi Center.

Jennifer Lopez spoke at a reception honoring children’s rights activist Marian Wright Edelman. Ben Affleck read excerpts from a Howard Zinn book and made an appearance at the city’s food bank for America’s Second Harvest.

Affleck was joined by his wife, Jennifer Garner, at the book reading at the Starz Green Room across the street from the Pepsi Center. Also participating: Rosario Dawson, Kerry Washington, Taye Diggs, Hill Harper and Josh Brolin.

Other celebrity sightings around Denver:
      – The Black Eyed Peas performed a concert at the Fillmore Auditorium for the Creative Coalition. Fergie praised Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Tuesday-night speech, saying Clinton “really spoke to me as a woman. And I think she spoke to a lot of people in that way.”
      – Politicians including former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner attended a ONE Campaign party featuring a Kanye West performance. Also in attendance: Forest Whitaker, Kal Penn, Jamie Foxx and director Davis Guggenheim.
      – Muhammad Ali sat in the convention audience.
      – Fran Drescher, Ashley Judd and Joy Bryant joined Lopez at the reception honoring Edelman.
      – Hathaway and others gathered at a morning reception honoring Annette Bening for her work narrating the documentary “14 Women,” about women in the U.S. Senate.
      – Big Boi of Outkast was at the airport on his way out of town after hosting a Radio One show where he interviewed John Legend, among others.

DENVER – The Democratic National Convention you see on TV is not the same convention as experienced in the Pepsi Center.

You see delegates cheering, dancing, waving signs. You don’t see the army of men and women in lime-green vests patrolling the aisles, distributing American flags and signs and instructing delegates in their “spontaneous” demonstrations.

Humanity clogs the area behind the prime floor seats and in front of the risers. Delegates push to find their seats. Gawkers want a glimpse of network news stars broadcasting from the floor.

“My God, that’s Katie Couric!” a woman screamed as she snaked through the crowd.

Others in the lumbering mass are celebrities whose conversations cause those around them to stop and stare. A jam quickly formed when comedian and TV talk show host Bill Maher stopped to talk with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. I couldn’t hear their conversation and was blinded by camera flashes. Kucinich’s beautiful wife, Elizabeth, stood off to the side, almost unnoticed.

Many of these wanderers are guests or staffers who have no seats – but they do have cameras and cell phones and the need to share. Others are members of the news media – who outnumber delegates here better than three to one – who must take the temperature of their delegation, again. Is the party unified yet?

So, hundreds, if not thousands, of people roam the hall – or they would if there was room to roam. We may be in a city on the wide-open plains, but here in the Pepsi Center the proximity to other human beings is worse than anything New York commuters experience on rush-hour subways. In the bottleneck, it’s hot and close and an unconventional reality.

During former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s keynote address Tuesday, I tried to make my way to Media General’s seats in the press stands near the podium after visiting with North Carolinians. Here’s some of what I heard from the podium and on the floor:

Warner: “The most important contest of our generation has begun…”

Lime-green vest man: “Put the signs down for now. We’ll tell you when to put them up.”

Warner: “I believe from the bottom of my heart with the right vision, the right leadership, and the energy and creativity of the American people, there is no nation that we can’t out hustle or out compete. And no American need be left out or left behind.”

Man to friend: “You coming to the party tonight?”

Friend: “Which one?”

Warner: “In America, everyone should get a fair shot.”

Lime-green vest woman speaking urgently into phone: “We have a press bottleneck between Alaska and New York! They won’t move!”

Warner: “You know America has never been afraid of the future, and we shouldn’t start now.”

Young blonde woman on a hot pink cell phone: “You can drop your bags at my place. … We’re staying at the Sheraton.”

Warner: “Barack Obama has a different vision – and a different plan…the status quo just won’t cut it.”

Lime-green vest man, shouting: “Guys, you can’t stand there. You’ve got to keep moving. Move! Move! Move!”

DENVER (AP) – Democrats opened their national convention on Monday, seeking peace in the family as they pursue victory in the fall for Barack Obama and his historic quest for the White House.

An appearance by the ailing, aging Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and a primetime speech by Obama’s wife, Michelle, headlined the convention’s first night.

In excerpts released in advance, the would-be first lady said she and her husband were raised with solid American values: “that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.”

The convention’s opening gavel fell with Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton still struggling to work out the choreography for the formal roll call of the states that will make him – a 47-year-old senator bidding to become the first black president – the party nominee.

“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is Barack Obama’s convention,” the former first lady told reporters. And yet, she said, some of her delegates “feel an obligation to the people who sent them here” and would vote for her.

As the delegates took their seats in the Pepsi Center, Obama campaigned in Iowa, the first in a string of swing states he is visiting en route to Colorado. He arranged to watch his wife’s speech on television later from Kansas City, then speak briefly to the convention via a huge TV screen.

Public opinion polls made the race with Republican John McCain a close one, unexpectedly so given a widespread desire for change in an era of economic uncertainty, continuing conflict in Iraq and poor approval ratings for GOP President Bush.

Obama delivers his acceptance speech on Thursday at a football stadium, before a crowd likely to total 75,000 or more. Then he and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, his vice presidential running mate, depart for the fall campaign.

If the opening night’s convention program had a feel-good quality, not so the intensifying campaign outside the hall.

Obama shipped a new commercial that used humor to depict McCain as an extension of the Bush administration, the latest in a series of negative advertisements by both sides.

“Really can’t explain the price of gas, or what has happened to the middle class,” the announcer sings to the tune of Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World.” With McCain and Bush appearing together on the screen, the announcer says, “Do we really want four more years of the same old tune?”

While the White House is the biggest prize of the election year, prominent Democrats expressed optimism in Associated Press interviews about major gains in the fall in races for the House and Senate.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said 70 or more House seats are competitive, the majority of them currently in Republican hands.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said fashioning a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority was a stretch. But he added that Democrats lead for five seats currently in Republican hands, and several others are competitive.

Howard Dean, the party chairman, rapped the opening gavel precisely on schedule at 3 p.m. Mountain Time – before only a smattering of delegates.

“We are ready to compete in all 50 states in November,” he said, even though Obama has already written off large portions of the South and Mountain West.

Schumer and Van Hollen said only a small fraction of Clinton’s delegates remained unreconciled to Obama’s triumph in the bruising primaries of the winter and spring.

Perhaps so, but they were vocal about it, and officials said one of the issues under discussion was whether to permit a noisy floor demonstration by Clinton’s supporters when the former first lady’s name is placed in nomination on Wednesday night.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest child of the late Robert F. Kennedy and a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, said the animosity that some Clinton delegates feel toward Obama is worsening. “There’s a moment that you want to enjoy your bitterness,” she said, although she emphasized that she is supporting Obama.

Another Maryland delegate, Mary Boergers said she didn’t care what Clinton’s wishes were about whom to support on a roll call.

“To try to suppress the celebration that we all want to have about her achievements is what would tear this party apart,” she said.

Boergers, a lifelong Democrat, added she is unsure whether she will vote for Obama in November.

Obama told reporters that his former rival and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “couldn’t have been more clear” in their support for his candidacy.

But the sniping was impossible to miss.

“I’m getting a lot of calls and e-mails, especially from women, who are quite upset that she was not vetted (for vice president) even though senator Obama said she was on the short list,” said Lanny Davis, a longtime Clinton loyalist.

All the talk about disunity was grating on some.

“To stay wallowing in all of this is not productive,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

“So we can talk about this forever, or we can talk about how we’re going to take our message to the American people, to women all across America, to see the distinctions” between Obama and McCain.

Obama’s campaign set that as one of the principal goals of the convention week.

“Obama’s major challenge at this convention is to focus on the middle class, to show empathy because he had to climb his way up,” to demonstrate he has plans to remedy their concerns and the ability to get things done in Washington, Schumer said.

But first came the tribute to Kennedy, now 76 and battling brain cancer. After flying to Denver, he was expected to be in the hall for the video tribute, although Democrats insisted they did not know if he would speak.

Even so, his presence “gives everyone a big lift,” Schumer said of the last surviving brother of the late President John F. Kennedy and a party icon across more than four decades in the Senate.

Kennedy’s decision to endorse Obama in the early days of the primary campaign was a turning point, not only because it was a ceremonial passing of the torch but also because of his ability to serve as a political reference of sorts for Hispanics, union workers and others.

Obama’s wife, accompanied by their two children, made a midmorning visit to the convention hall to familiarize herself with the podium.

The campaign said her speech would present a personal view of her husband, and “talk about their life together, and building a family grounded in faith and values.”

DENVER (AP) – Like a Cinderella deciding to pass up the ball, Denver said no thanks to an invitation in 1976 to host the Olympic Games. Now the Mile High City is off to the dance of the Democrats, a party pooper no more.

Nervous about the logistics, short on money, excited to show its sophisticated side, proud but a little touchy about its Western past, Denver is as ready as it’s going to be for the Democratic National Convention.

Tens of thousands are expected for the Aug. 25-28 convention at the downtown Pepsi Center. An estimated 75,000 people could hear Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at nearby Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium.

Denver is determined to drive home the Mountain West’s importance in the presidential election and show off its stature as a cosmopolitan area of 2.4 million – one riding an oil and gas boom and strong in telecommunications, aerospace, agriculture and renewable energy.

City and party host committees have spent months urging Coloradans to get involved. More than 25,000 volunteers have responded in a burst of civic pride, and the city faces the prospect of young Obama supporters gathering in a kind of political Woodstock.

There have been hitches.

Owing to the protracted Democratic primary race and a dearth of Fortune 500 companies here, Denver fell nearly $12 million short of the $40.6 million it had pledged as its share of fundraising costs. Obama’s vast money machine is coming to the rescue.

Money was part of what sank the hopes of Olympic boosters in 1976 and sent the games to Austria. Colorado voters blocked public money for the Olympiad, opposing not just the expense but the risk of environmental damage from bringing the mega-event to the state.

This time, 24 welcome parties across the city for delegates were consolidated into one event to reduce costs.

In a state unfriendly to organized labor, city leaders were able to settle union concerns about the convention. Union workers are being hired for the event at the Pepsi Center, a nonunion site. Democrats pay careful attention to whether venues they want to use are friendly to their union allies.

Colorado has a history of feeling overlooked, a problem dating to 1867, when the Union Pacific Railroad bypassed the area for an easier route across the Wyoming prairie. Denver was forced to build a spur to Wyoming, leaving residents steamed about being treated as a cow town.

In 1876, Colorado became a state and burst onto the national political scene, casting the deciding votes when Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the Electoral College by one vote.

In 1908, Denver held the Democratic convention, which nominated William Jennings Bryan by acclamation before he lost his third bid for the presidency to William Howard Taft.

Part Wild West, part business capital of the Rocky Mountain region, the city had big banks as well as Market Street bordellos, 210,000 people, street cars and a sense its fortunes were on the rise.

Damon Runyon, writing for the Rocky Mountain News before making a splash in New York, noted that suits and straw hats were more common among men in downtown Denver than boots and cowboy hats.

Still, organizers held a rodeo and hired Apaches to camp at City Park.

This year, suggestions that delegates be welcomed at a rodeo were brushed aside; an amusement park was chosen instead. The cow town rap still infuses local sensibilities.

From 1921 to 1925, the Ku Klux Klan dominated Denver politics, including the governor’s office and a U.S. Senate seat. Ben Stapleton became mayor with Klan support but later repudiated the organization. The issue still burns decades later, with a movement to erase his name from housing projects built on the site of former Stapleton International Airport.

In the 1940s, Gov. Ralph Carr gained national attention for standing up for Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II.

Democrats say a big reason they picked Colorado over New York for this year’s convention is the opportunity they see in the Mountain West.

In 2002, Democrats swept five Western Republican governors from office. In 2004 they added Montana, and in 2006 they won control of Colorado’s statehouse and governor’s office for the first time since 1962, along with a Senate seat. They could take another Senate seat this year; Republican Wayne Allard is retiring.

Still, the top prize has been elusive. Colorado has voted for a Democratic presidential candidate only three times in more than a half-century: Harry Truman in 1948, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Holding the convention provides no guarantees. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, says Western voters want politicians to focus on bipartisan collaboration and honesty.

Colorado, for one, is more libertarian than Democratic.

The Libertarian Party was founded in Colorado Springs, and that city remains a conservative bastion, home to James Dobson and Focus on the Family. Democrats reign in Denver and Boulder. But Republican and independent voters both outnumber Democrats in Colorado.

For all the emphasis on Denver’s futuristic endeavors, it’s worth keeping in mind that cows – yes, cows – are still a big draw, bigger than Democrats.

The National Western Stock Show, which brings ranchers and farmers together to show off their livestock and strike stockyard deals, packs in nearly 10 times more people than are expected to hear Obama’s acceptance speech.

The stock show’s attendance this year: nearly 674,000.

Facts and Figures
-City founded: Nov. 17, 1858. Named after James Denver, governor of Kansas Territory.
-Statehood: Colorado, the Centennial State, became the nation’s 38th state in 1876.
-City population: 554,636.
-State population: 4.5 million; 3.2 million white, 736,000 Hispanic, 158,000 black, 97,000 Asian, 29,000 Native American.
-Foreign-born: 10.1 percent.
-Median age: 34.7.
-Median household income: $50,652.
-Percent below poverty line: 11.1.
-Registered voters: 1,018,000 Republican; 1,014,000 independent; 901,000 Democratic.
-Major industries: Communications, utilities, transportation, energy, aerospace, agriculture, tourism.
-Governor: Bill Ritter (D), elected 2006.
-Congress: Sens. Ken Salazar (D), Wayne Allard (R); Allard is retiring. House: Four Democrats, three Republicans.
- Independent Ross Perot got 23 percent of the presidential vote in 1996.
-This year’s convention is expected to generate $160 million and draw as many as 50,000 visitors.

By MARSHA MERCER
Media General News Service

Here come the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions – and the quadrennial whine.

You’ve heard it: The conventions are a big waste of time and money. They don’t pick the presidential nominees, and platform battles are rare. They’re orchestrated shows or, worse, infomercials.

The critics are right, to a point. There’s no suspense about the presidential nominees, harmony is the goal, and the conventions are heavily scripted. So what?

The Democratic convention that starts Monday in Denver and the Republican convention that convenes on Labor Day in St. Paul are neither pointless nor irrelevant.

Not required by the Constitution, national political conventions survive after 176 years because they still serve a purpose. Their role has evolved since the election of 1832. Today they rally the major parties and give them time in the public eye to express – and sell – their values and their presidential nominees. The conventions signal that it’s time to focus on the fall election. They encourage us to consider who we are as Americans and how we want to go forward.

While the parties do try to control every image and moment, they simply can’t. Protesters outside and emotions inside are wild cards. In the age of 24-7 blogging and unblinking cameras, the unexpected is almost inevitable.

The Democratic and Republican conventions four years ago each cost about $90 million, and more will be spent this year. Thousands of journalists, including a team from Media General, will cover the conventions. Our goal is to take our readers, viewers and Web visitors inside so they’ll be educated consumers of the political show. If the Olympics are about athletic prowess and form, the conventions are about putting forth the candidates’ style and message in political theater.

These conventions are historic, and both promise drama.

During their four days in Denver, the Democrats will try to keep the focus on nominee Barack Obama even as Hillary and Bill Clinton swan on stage and she fosters catharsis for her supporters. How will Obama, the son of a Kenyan and a Kansan, reassure voters that he’s “one of us” and not a risky choice? Meanwhile, Democrats also promise to get tough on McCain.

In St. Paul, Republicans will use their four days to make the case for John McCain in the White House during turbulent global times – without tying him to its current unpopular occupant. President Bush will speak the first night. How will McCain, who’s vying to be the oldest first-term president in history, reassure voters that he’s not too old at 72? Will McCain poke conservatives in the eye with his choice of a running mate? The GOP is unlikely to mince words about Obama.

Conventions are the off-Broadway stage of American politics. Few knew Obama until he spoke at the Democratic convention just four years ago. McCain made his national debut on the 1988 Republican convention stage. Who will be this year’s surprise star? He or she could be a contender in 2012.

So, bring on the conventions. They’re everything the critics say – and more.

A look at Monday’s speakers for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver:
      —
MICHELLE OBAMA: The potential first lady addresses Democrats at the convention after a rocky summer as the target of conservative attacks. She was harshly criticized by Republicans for her comment that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of the United States – a comment the candidate later said was merely an expression of her pride in high voter interest. The criticism of Michelle Obama led the candidate earlier this year to call for opponents to “lay off my wife.” In recent weeks, Michelle Obama has worked to soften her image, talking about raising two daughters in an interview in Ebony magazine and making a June appearance at an Ohio nursing home. Barack Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and Michelle Obama’s older brother, Craig Robinson, also will have roles in the convention.
     

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: The nation’s first female speaker of the House, Pelosi opens the convention. Pelosi has represented the San Francisco area in Congress since 1987. Since taking the gavel last year, Pelosi has steered a divided House through an economic stimulus package and opposition to many of President Bush’s initiatives, including an override of Bush’s veto of the 2008 farm bill. But so far she has failed to achieve a top goal since Democrats regained control of the House: halting U.S. combat missions in Iraq. The failure has led to criticism of Pelosi by liberal activists.
     
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The Massachusetts senator is the subject of a five-minute recorded tribute. Diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and recently completing radiation and chemotherapy, one of the nation’s best-known Democrats has been keeping a low public profile. The video tribute will be introduced by his niece, Caroline Kennedy.
     

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner from Georgia addresses Democrats on the convention’s opening night. Some in the GOP sees Carter’s early support for Obama as an opening. Republican presidential nominee John McCain has said that if Democrats see a McCain presidency as a third term for Bush, then an Obama victory would be tantamount to a second term for Carter, who lost his 1980 re-election by a wide margin to Ronald Reagan.
     

SEN. CLAIRE McCASKILL: The Missouri Democrat was the first woman in the Senate to endorse Obama. She spent a week this summer on a bus tour of swing-state Missouri in support of Obama’s candidacy. McCaskill endorsed Obama just after he lost New Hampshire’s Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton, a politically risky move at the time.
     

REP. JESSE JACKSON JR.: The son of the civil rights activist has represented the Chicago area since a special election in 1995 and is a national co-chairman of Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2004, Jackson was an early supporter of Sen. John Kerry for his party’s presidential nomination. Party leaders say Jackson’s speech will “tell Barack Obama’s life story.”
      
 
FORMER REP. LEE HAMILTON: Now president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Hamilton is a prominent Obama supporter from Indiana. After more than 30 years in Congress, Hamilton retired in 1999. He was a top Democrat on the Sept. 11 commission and co-chairman of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Hamilton’s April endorsement of Obama helped the candidate’s camp answer the question – “Who do you want to answer the phone at 3 a.m.?” – posed by the Clinton campaign.
     

NANCY KEENAN: The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America angered some female voters in May by endorsing Obama, even though Clinton was still in the race. Keenan praised Clinton but said the group was endorsing Obama when it became clear he would win the Democratic nomination.
     

JERRY KELLMAN: The Chicago native hired Obama in the early 1980s as a community organizer for Chicago’s Developing Communities Project and is often cited as a mentor to Obama.
     

TOM BALANOFF: The president of the Illinois Service Employees International Union also burnishes Obama’s labor credentials. Balanoff has praised Obama’s votes against trade deals such as the Central America Free Trade Agreement.
     

REG WEAVER: Weaver leads the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association. The teachers’ union did not endorse Obama until June, after Obama secured the Democratic nomination. “As long as (Clinton) was a viable candidate in the Democratic nomination process, many of our members felt a passionate need to return the loyalty she has earned over decades of support,” Weaver wrote at the time.
     

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers. The 1.4 million-member union endorsed Clinton last October but now backs Obama. Despite support for Obama from both teachers unions, not all educators are happy with Obama, who has spoken in favor of performance-based merit pay for individual public school teachers.
     

LISA MADIGAN: Illinois’ attorney general has at times been mentioned as a candidate to replace Obama in the U.S. Senate for the remaining two years of his term if he wins the presidency.
     

DAN HYNES: Like Madigan, Illinois’ comptroller has been mentioned as a possible Obama successor in the Senate. Hynes unsuccessfully challenged Obama for the 2004 Democratic Senate nomination but has since been a major Illinois supporter of Obama’s.
     
ALEXI GIANNOULIAS: The Illinois treasurer was backed by Obama, an endorsement that helped the banking heir win his seat. In return, Giannoulias helped Obama win support among Greek voters in the Chicago area and has raised more than $250,000 for Obama.
     

MIGUEL DEL VALLE: Chicago’s city clerk rounds out Monday’s group of Illinois officials talking up the candidate from their home state.
      
JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Democrats salute host city Denver with a speaking slot for the city’s Democratic mayor.

BY MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON — Why Denver?

Why are Democrats holding their national convention next week in the hub of the Rocky Mountains rather than a traditional presidential battleground state like Florida or Ohio, or some other large-delegate state like New York?

After all, the last time a party held its convention in Denver was in 1908. That year, the nominee, William Jennings Bryan, went on to be handed his worst loss in three tries at the hands of Republican William Howard Taft.

The selection of Denver for this year’s Democratic convention Monday through next Thursday is cast by some as a well-timed outreach to the so-called “New West” – in particular, the mountain states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Utah and Idaho that have been taken for granted by Republicans, but may now be turning purple.

With the nation’s the fastest population growth and economic changes, including big influxes of Hispanics and professional workers, experts say this part of the country could flirt with being a key presidential battleground this fall, and almost certainly will be so in the years ahead.

“It’s smart for one of the major parties to plant its flag in a region that is trending rapidly toward ’swing status’,” said Mark Muro, policy director for the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution, which released a report last month on the rapid changes enveloping the American West.

“It will be a few elections before it (the region) rivals Ohio and Florida as a (presidential) battleground,” said Muro. “But it is a place with a new, vital economy. It’s a place where the nation needs to build new infrastructure, a place of great social mobility, and to where tremendous numbers of new residents are being attracted to the possibility of a middle-class life.”

And the bulk of this new migration is moving in and around urban areas, such as Denver, Phoenix and Albuquerque, representing large pockets of new Democratic votes.

In Florida, the state’s Democratic Party chairman, Karen Thurman, says the significant inroads Democrats have already made in the region can’t be denied.

“We’ve always known that you’ve got to grow the (battleground state) map. And when you look at some of the recent Senate races in the West, and the transition from Republican governorships to more Democratic governorships, you’re starting to see a transition,” says Thurman.

President Bush nearly swept the region in his elections, taking all but New Mexico in 2000, and all nine states in 2004.

But today, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana and Wyoming all have Democratic governors, when none did just eight years ago.

In addition, Democrat Ken Salazar, a Hispanic, won a previously Republican U.S. Senate seat in Colorado in 2004. And Jon Tester’s election to a previously GOP-held U.S. Senate seat in Montana in 2006 helped swing the Senate majority to the Democrats, vaulting Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada to Majority Leader. This fall, there are good chances of Democratic Senate pickups in New Mexico and Colorado.
Big Payoff?

National pollster John Zogby is among those who see a big opportunity for Democrats in Denver next week, even if the city did need a bit of luck along with the cheerleading of Reid and others to land the convention.
Though New Orleans was thought to be the first choice of Democrats back in 2005 and 2006, that city dropped out. Three other cities did submit final proposals to host the convention, but one of those – St. Paul, Minn. — was chosen by the Republicans first. That left Denver and New York, with Denver emerging as the choice early last year after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his city couldn’t financially support another convention.

Zogby says that if presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama can win a state like Colorado, Nevada or
New Mexico – he could be put over the top without winning either Florida or Ohio this fall.

“If you just look at the (electoral) map from ‘04 to the present, if Obama can pick up a red state, he can win. Colorado is one of those that can flip. It really is in play,” said Zogby.

Latest polling in the state show Obama and presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain in a statistical dead heat in Colorado, with a considerable percentage of undecided voters (10 percent). The state has nine Electoral College votes.

Not that anyone really believes Coloradoans will automatically fall into the Democratic line this fall just because the convention is being held there, or that there will be a ripple effect in other Western states.
But holding the convention in Denver goes a long way to showing the state’s residents that Democrats consider them important, Zogby said. Democrats are making Denver a focal point of their party next week, bringing with the event tens of thousands of conventioneers, media attention and an estimated $160 million to $200 million in revenue.

“They (Democrats) want to make a statement about going after the West, and that they intend to be competitive there,” said Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan newsletter.

“I personally don’t think it matters, though, where a party holds its convention. I think it’s a worthless symbolic gesture,” he said. “But you’ve got to have it (the party’s convention) somewhere,” he said.

And with that the case, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Denver is a great choice, because “it’s clearly the future of the Democratic Party.”