Not too impressed.
Wyoming delegates are a practical bunch. They like to stay calmly in their seats while other delegations are trolling for celebrities or cruising the food vendors for Bigger Better Dogs or Jake’s Mmmini Donuts.
“It seems like there are a thousand things going on at once,” explains Mike Massie, a state senator from Laramie, from the safety of his seat.
It’s a good place for Massie to make an observation about the ebb and flow of a crowd that alternately roars and grows silent along with the dimming or brightening of lights.
“It’s like when you put a blanket over a parrot’s cage,” he says of the sudden quiet spells.
The big statement.
There are buttons and then there are Button Bob Levine’s buttons. He sports two Obama pins the size of dessert plates.
“That’s nothing,” he boasts, “I make other buttons the size of dinner plates.”
Button Bob, who came to the convention from Manchester, Mo., is a Democrat, but he’s also a businessman. He said he’ll be making giant McCain buttons next week.
“Keep America moving.”
Each evening, the aisle separating the floor seats from the bleacher seats turns into a mosh pit.
The crammed crowds do the sideways crab walk and the itty-bitty-step sheep shuffle and look at each other helplessly as the aisle traffic continually grinds to a sweaty halt. “Keep America moving,” shouts one frustrated delegate. Another makes a quiet Democratic proposal to the woman he is tightly pressed against in the crowd: “Why don’t we get married?”
The human traffic jam truly is Democratic. Actors Matthew Modine and Susan Sarandon are as stuck in it as everyone else.
