Sen. Ken Salazar will be among the speakers who nominates Barack Obama for president on Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, the Colorado lawmaker’s office said tonight.
“I’m going to talk about the American dream, one I have lived and one that he has lived,” Salazar said in an interview on the floor of the Pepsi Center. “I’m going to talk about the need to restore the faith in that American dream.”
An aide said Salazar would be among those who seconded the Illinois senator’s nomination.
Salazar has been riffing on why Obama is the right candidate for the West for weeks now, and that role has grown as the convention has unfolded.
In a previous interview with the Post, he said his remarks would focus on how he and Obama are two men who, while on the face are so dissimilar, are very much alike after all.
“No one would have ever anticipated the unlikely ascent of Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” Salazar said. “No one would have anticipated that I would serve as a United States senator given the fact that we were so poor, (that we) didn’t have telephone or electricity on our farm.
“Those possibilities could only happen in this country. That’s what makes for me personally this election so exciting,” he said.
Salazar, who is in his first term, previously serves as Attorney General.
John Straayer, a political science professor at Colorado State University, told the Associated Press that the decision makes sense, considering Salazar is the state’s native son and that the move can help Democrats gain votes in Colorado.
“This is Denver, this is the Southwest, and there is a significant Hispanic population here and Salazar resonates well with them,” he said.
