Last Day in Denver

Obama's opponents have used charges of identitiy politics and celebrity worship to tar him. But no one is really immune. Certainly not Hillary, whose hardcore supporters' attachment -- even at the expense of the issues she espouses--is a cult of personality if ever there was one. Not even Ralph Nader, who advertised a "star studded" super rally at the University of Denver to compete with the convention. Sean Penn was a headliner at the event (promoted as 5,000 to 7,000 people at $10 a ticket in advance, $12 at the door. More like 1,500 people and I walked in for free).

Penn may be an attraction for his Hollywood star status, but his speech was full of hard, angry words about "traitors" in Washington 'feeding at the trough of our Constitution" (Ok, hard, angry and a little muddled, metaphorically--but you get the drift.)

Penn said he didn't know who he was going to vote for, but defended the option of voting for Nader "a genuine American hero" as well as the votes people cast for "the Ron Pauls, the Bob Barrs, Cynthia McKinneys and Dennis Kucinich". The crowed went wild--especially for Ron Paul. But Bob Barr?

"Let's not forget that Obama was the biggest spoiler of them all," Penn said, practically spitting at the Clintons and the Democratic establishment that was shocked by Obama's rise, comparing them to "little like kids who want to take their ball and go home."

"Whoever you vote for, you better hold his ass to the fire," Penn concluded. "Next time someone says, 'How dare Ralph Nader run,' you ask them what they did for their country today," he suggested. and "if you find them dumbstruck or arrogantly dismissive you tell them Ralph Nader's coming for them."

This was pretty much the opposite of the tone being struck in the convention hall, where the Clintons, and the rest of the party establishment, were bowing to Obama. Instead of feeling angry and left out, Obama delegates--particularly African Americans, were exultant and moved to tears as they cast their nominating votes for the first black candidate in history.

Marvin Sutton, an African American air traffic controller from Arlington, Texas, beamed with pride talking about Obama, whose meteoric rise was, to him cause for celebration. "You take a junior Senator from Illinois who nobody gave a shot, and all of a sudden--wait a minute, something is happening! What's going on? He has inspired people."

Sutton was inspired by the Obama campaign to run for city council in Arlington.

Despite his exultation, he had sympathetic words for the Hillary delegates. "They are hurting. It takes time. It's like you lost a loved one."

The Clintons did their part. And as the convention moved into its last day, you could see the themes bringing people together, from Michelle Obama's family values night that kicked things off to Joe Biden's speech last night, which replayed some of the same notes. Biden had the delegates rapt with his description of working-class struggle, which echoed, from a white, Irish-Catholic perspective, the same ideas Michelle talked about learning from her black, South Side Chicago family. "Work is dignity. . . . being able to look your children in the eye and say, 'We're going to make it.'"

Much, perhaps most, of politics is visceral, subrational. In a way, it is all identity politics.

If you are running for President, you can't dismiss tone and emotional appeal.

Jello Biafra understands that. Following Penn, he conceded much of the crowd would probably end up voting for Obama. But, he said, "We're not going to go to sleep like when Clinton got elected. We will not be Clintoned again."

With his winning, gleeful delivery, Biafra the rock star and merry prankster, had some of the best substantive ideas of the week in Denver:

"You want change? What are you going to do to end the war on drugs," he asked. "Repeal the Patriot Act? . . . . prosecute every single member of the Bush Administration who broke the law? . . . Send Donald Rumsfeld and David Addington and Dick Cheney to the Hague to be prosecuted as war criminals?"

Besides free health care, a living wage, and rent control, Biafra proposed a grassroots response to the mortgage crisis: what if thousands of people whose homes were being foreclosed on refused to leave?" he asked with a cackle. People did it in the 1930s, he said, and right now here is a group scaring away the banks by banding together with neighbors to keep people in their homes in Boston.

Biafra's energy--the opposite of Penn's--is what draws people to feel part of something, to feel empowered and want to join a movement.

Nader, for his part, proved that you can be right about everything--including hitting Obama hard on his FISA vote and corporate influence--and still somehow be wrong about a big part of politics. Emotion, tone, style, connecting with people are a big part of it. To a local reporter who asked Nader who he would vote for if he had to choose between Obama and McCain, Nader snapped, "You just wasted a question!"

Some people, it seems, just aren't smart enough for his campaign.