Democrats in the Wichita area got robocalls Thursday inviting them to come help kick off Barack Obama’s post-convention presidential campaign this weekend.
An Obama open house will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday in conjunction with the annual Demofest event at Wichita State University’s Hughes Metropolitan Complex, said Samatha Finke, Kansas field representative for the Obama campaign.
The campaign will be signing up and organizing volunteers to help the Obama campaign in the sprint to the Nov. 4 general election. Voter registration and absentee ballot applications will also be available, Finke said. Read More »
DENVER — As Barack Obama took the stage at Invesco Field on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, Larry Wilson quietly said, “This is it, this is the night, this is the change. Thank you God. Thank you.”
Wilson, an African-American from Topeka, wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. But a few moments later, he talked with a reporter about how he felt as he watched the first African-American presidential candidate from either major party accept the Democratic nomination.
He said he saw it as a victory not just for African Americans, but for Americans.
“Look around,” he said, gesturing to the crowd of 75,000 filling nearly every seat in the stadium where the Denver Broncos play their home games. “You see people of all colors and sizes. This is what America looks like.”
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DENVER — One Kansas delegate to the Democratic National Convention learned the hard way that politics can be a rough business.
Elizabeth Bustamante of Garden City got roughed up by four women who objected to her efforts to get back into a caucus meeting at the Colorado Convention Center.
Bustamante was inside when she popped a zipper and had to go out to repair the damage.
When she tried to get back in, four women waiting for seats boxed her in, jostled her and one elbowed her in the ribs, causing her to hyperventilate.
“The paramedics had to come in and take me outside,” she said. It was “the worst moment of the whole convention” for Bustamante.
“I couldn’t believe people could be that mean and cruel over just a space,” she said.
DENVER — One Bush doesn’t equal another, U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore told Kansas delegates to the Democratic National Convention here.
At the daily delegation breakfast, Moore said he felt that President George H. W. Bush, although he was from the other party and had different ideas, had been an honorable opponent and thoughtful leader of the country.
“The first President Bush, I didn’t agree with him on everything, (but) he was a real president, you know what I mean,” Moore said. “This son is a different story.”
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DENVER — “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is Dan Glickman’s favorite political film.
Glickman views that from a unique perspective. He also went to Washington, as a U.S. representative from Wichita in the 1970s and 1980s, and as agriculture secretary during the Clinton Administration. He’s now the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America.
In a speech to members of the Kansas delegation to the Democratic National Convention, he said the country needs to return to the kind of idealism depicted in the classic Jimmy Stewart film.
In the movie, the young Stewart plays a honest but naive freshman senator who battles political corruption at the Capitol.
“Go back and see it again,” Glickman said.
“What we have to do is to try to restore the confidence of the American people that the system is on the level.”
Throughout the Democratic National Convention, Jason Dilts has been sort of Sedgwick County’s delegate-without-portfolio.
Dilts, executive director of the county Democratic Party, came to Denver with no credentials and no formal standing at the convention.
But that hasn’t stopped him from participating in it.
On Tuesday, someone lent him a pass so he could be on the floor when Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Sen Hillary Clinton made their speeches. Dilts is a big fan of both. Read More »
Now that speculation on whether Gov. Kathleen Sebelius would be nominated for vice president is over, the period of speculation begins over whether she will get a cabinet post if Barack Obama wins the presidency in November.
And Sebelius is deftly deflecting questions about her future plans, as she did during the veepstakes that concluded Saturday with Obama picking Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.
She said today she has had no discussions with Obama about a possible role in his administration if he should win. Read More »
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Kansas delegates to the Democratic National Convention took some time off from politics Wednesday to help sick people half a world away.
For their share of the Democrats’ 50-delegation public service project, they sorted medical equipment and packed shipping cartons for Project Cure, a nonprofit group that collects surplus health supplies and sends them to developing countries where such items are badly needed.
Although the primary purpose of the two-hour event was to showcase the party’s commitment to public service, Michael Young, the operations manager for the Denver chapter of Project Cure, said the delegates’ efforts were more than a publicity stunt. Read More »
“I wanted it to be Obama/Sebelius, but they figured at least one name 
had to pass spell check.”
– North Carolina Gov. Mike Easly, joking with Kansas delegates about Obama selecting Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his running mate instead of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
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A pair of longtime Ohio Democratic activists say the Kansas governor definitely would have brought some positive name recognition in their critical swing state, where Obama lost to Hillary Clinton in the primary. Read More »
