Last night, Andrea and I went downtown for a White House Project party at the Denver Newspaper Agency building downtown. Since we had to go downtown anyway, we took the opportunity to wander down the 16th Street Mall towards the Pepsi Center to people watch. And what people watching it was!
The 16th Street Mall had more people on it than I have ever seen. It was packed! The first “protester” we encountered exhorted us to “Stop Bird Porn!“ The meaning of that, we’ve yet to figure out. Then we found some anti-gay and anti-abortion protesters. There were the obligatory riot police at the Federal Reserve Bank and a cart selling Obama action figures.
We then moved through Larimer Square and out onto Speer where we were greeted by the best use of the $50 million in security money for the DNC. We had the eerie experience of being able to walk right down the middle of one of the busiest streets in Denver, Speer Boulevard, on our way closer to Fortress Pepsi Center.
The protesters were thick around the security entrance to the Pepsi Center as the cops looked on, clearly bored by the whole thing. We then headed back through Larimer Square and up the 16th Street Mall before heading to the party.
The White House Project party was a celebration of 10 years of the White House Project. We hung out with a few friends and watched the Biden acceptance speech there before heading home.
As I write this, Andrea just got into Invesco Field for tonight’s Obama acceptance speech. Her seats are in the 500 level, so she’ll be a long way up, but I’m jealous that she’s there at all. The whole thing has been interesting to watch the security and political processes up close in our home city.
