Staff Blog
Worlds Collide
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| Pennsylvania Obama delegate Josh Uretsky |
This convention is crowded. Really really crowded. I attended the 2004 convention in Boston and it didn't get this crowded until the final day of the convention. That's when most of the celebrities and VIPs showed up, when presumably more and more people managed to finagle credentials for the convention through various connections. Things got so crowded the final night of that convention that at some relatively early point in the evening all access to the arena itself was closed. Go to the bathroom, lose your seat. It was almost that crowded last night, making the decision to move the final night to the much larger Invesco Field a smart one.
Walking around the hallways of arena is a surreal experience due to the amazing cast of characters who are wandering around. It isn't that there are celebrities around, it's that there are several types of celebrities. While snapping a picture of Tucker Carlson I missed the fact that Jimmy Carter was walking by. PA State Rep. Tony Payton, Jr. excitedly informed me that he'd just seen Spike Lee. All of this is taking place in the somewhat less than glamorous environment of the hallways of a basketball arena, and such people are walking by the hot dog stands along with staffers, less well-known media figures, and, of course, the delegates.
So, basically it’s like having dinner at El Cholo.