By Thursday, downtown Denver already was returning to something approaching normal.
Yes, the Taste of Colorado was beginning to set up for the Labor Day weekend, but Denver is used to that level of disruption. It’s the double-digit disruption — the celebrities, the hovering helicopters and the black-clad riot squads riding on the outsides of their imposing SUVs — that made us think we had lost control of our city.
Local officials had hoped that bringing the Democratic National Convention to Denver would focus new attention on Western issues, show the political potential of the West for the Democrats and, most important from a political perspective, launch Barack Obama’s presidential campaign with a rousing, unified sendoff.
For national priorities, put those in reverse order. The foremost goal of any convention is to serve as a pep rally, to fire up the team with a message of unity and support for the contest ahead.
When the West was mentioned at this convention in one of the most Western of cities, it was in the context of possibilities for winning ground long dominated by the Republicans. Colorado (and thus Denver) offers an example of how that can be done.
But when it comes down to specific Western issues such as water, land use, natural resources and immigration — well, there wasn’t so much of that.
It was in the West, but not so much about the West.
Judging from conversations with delegates, party officials and others on the last day of the convention, the major goals were accomplished. And they loved Denver, too.
“It’s been a wonderful host city,” said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. “Awesome,” said Pam Powell of Detroit, a United Auto Workers union representative.
The Denver convention had more opportunities for more public involvement than other conventions he’s attended, said John Cuff, a delegate-at-large from Eugene, Ore. This was his third, after 2000 in Los Angeles and 2004 in Boston.
Denver’s exposure to the world was not as impressive as Denverites might have hoped, but it rarely is for host cities. They are venues, not attractions. If they get attention, it’s for their political significance, not their innate beauty, culture and intelligence.
So it was significant to have a liberal convention in a rather conservative state, a state on its way from being reliably Republican to a political place somewhere to the left of that.
Colorado’s nine delegates to Washington have drifted in the past two elections from 7-2 Republican to 5-4 Democratic. The legislature is controlled by Democrats for the first time in four decades. Since 2002, governors here and in Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma have shifted from Republican to Democrat.
That was the Western issue that got the most attention: how to win in a region undergoing political change. It was the emphasis at meetings on Monday featuring Western governors. Beyond that, there wasn’t much discussion of concerns that are felt particularly in the West, said David Brown, a delegate from Sunnyvale, Texas.
“I never heard a word about immigration,” said Liz Himmel-Roberts of Hartford, S.D. She felt the convention succeeded at selling the Obama-Joe Biden ticket to people in this part of the country, but there wasn’t enough said about water or land use or even renewable energy.
But there’s more to a convention than what happens on the floor. The Texas delegation discussed immigration at its caucuses. Cuff, the Oregon delegate, attended rural caucuses where much of the discussion was how to lure doctors and other professionals to the countryside.
One thing the convention showed is that Denver can handle a crowd. That was probably the public’s biggest concern going in: disruptive, even dangerous protests.
The 16th Street Mall was mobbed with mostly happy people, but except for a few wannabes roving about with bandanas over their faces, there was surprisingly little disruption. Some of the anarchists looked like kids stuck having to play the bank robbers in a cowboys-and-bandits game.
The cowboys, of course, would be us, the city anxious to define itself: Old West, or New?
A little of both, apparently, with a lot of potential for the future and a successful major event now in its past.
