DENVER—Some of those who didn’t get a pass to see Barack Obama went to Invesco Field anyway, just to be close, just in case they might find a way to get inside.
On the east side of the stadium, they stood in clumps near the security checkpoint between the railroad tracks and a bridge over the South Platte River.
Some watched a group of John McCain supporters dance in togas made of sheets, holding ironic signs that said “We’re Not Worthy” and “The One.” Soon after they left, a man with an overloaded backpack took out a small radio and placed it on the ledge of the bridge. The strangers moved in and began to listen.
The people in the crowd ranged from their 20s to 50s. They were white, black and Hispanic. There was a couple with their little white dog, a man in a suit and bow tie, people leaning on bikes, a young man with his arm around his girlfriend.
When Obama began to speak, they heard the roar of the crowd reacting to him accepting the party’s nomination before they heard his first words because of the broadcast delay.
Five minutes into Obama’s speech, people with coveted passes to enter the stadium began leaving to beat the rush. But those in the radio crowd barely moved as they looked in the general direction of the stadium, trying to focus on a speech they could only hear.
The man with the backpack, Michael Patrick Downes, 31, had a radio because he’s traveling across the country. He got to Denver by driving the car of someone who posted an ad on Craigslist. He said he wouldn’t want to be inside the stadium even if he could because he doesn’t like the pageantry of conventions and he doesn’t think much of politicians. Still, he said he wanted to be an observer from the sidelines of this big event.
“It gave that old sense of the way people used to listen to the words of the speech, together,” said Downes of listening to the radio. He wore a T-shirt with the phrase “Cure Your Apathy,” which he said was more of a reminder for himself than a message for others.
Eric Hailes, Michael Eccleston and Rachael Steineckert, college students from Salt Lake City, were among those listening to Downes’ radio. They spent three days checking out events surrounding the Democratic National Convention, but the only tickets they got were free ones to see Ralph Nader at the University of Denver.
“This is the best we could get so we’re not going to complain,” Hailes said.
Living in a Republican state, Eccleston said being in Denver for the convention was the closest he’d get to seeing Barack Obama. The trio planned to drive all night to get back for morning classes Friday.
Siyad Loyan, 26, and John Moore, 29, didn’t get to listen to the whole speech because Moore, an engineer for Verizon, got called back to work.
“At least I can say I was around the stadium. This is a big, historic event and it’s in our own backyard,” Loyan said.
