Actually, ready to collapse into bed is more like it, I'm so tired. Certainly too tired to do a long post tonight. I wanted to stick in a couple of videos, though.
Barack Obama was in town this morning, speaking at the University of Denver, a school known best for its championship Pioneers hockey team. He was scheduled to speak in Magness Arena at 10 AM. At 4:30 AM, when the temperature was probably about 17 degrees, people had begun to line up outside the doors. By 8:30, when the doors were scheduled to open, the line was hundreds of yards long.
Magness Arena has a seating capacity of 8,000. It filled up, with another thousand or two standing on the floor. They put overflow into a gymnasium in the same building. It filled up. They grouped the people left over in a nearby lacrosse field. Overall, estimates are that about 19,000 showed up--with only a day's advance notice, despite almost zero mention in the media that he was coming, and on a frigid work day. I took a vacation day and my wife happened to be off work, so we pulled the kid out of school for the first part of the day and all three of us went. I think my daughter learned a lot more than she would have in a few hours of class, anyway.
Obama was an hour late because he spoke to the people outdoors and to the people in the gym before he came to the main arena. While waiting we heard a lot heartfelt but unexceptional speeches by kids from DU, local dignitaries, etc. Gary Hart was there and I would have liked to hear him speak, but the didn't.
Then came a surprise. The person who introduced Obama was Caroline Kennedy.
Obama gave a speech that was not unlike the one he's been giving all over, but with some local flavor. I also thought he was really magnanimous in the way he announced what most of us--at least I--had not heard: that John Edwards had quit the race. He also showed a little more than usual that he has thought long and deeply about the philosophical underpinnings of politics.
Afterwards I went to a precinct captains only meeting of about 700 people and Obama came and talked to us too, although only briefly.
Hillary's husband, whats-his-name, that truth challenged guy, was going to be speaking in town tonight at 9 PM. I didn't go. I doubt that very many people did. Tomorrow, I think it is, the President of the United States will be in town to speak. They can probably fit it in a broom closet.
It was a great morning. I'm still hoarse.
edit, from the news the next morning: " the former president told a crowd of more than 3,000 cheering supporters who showed up on a snowy night at the University of Denver's Magness Arena."