Democrats swarming all over Denver

DENVER — Greetings from Big D, and you know what that means this week ... Democrat, baby. There are more Democrats here than a Kennedy football game. It's the dead opposite of opening day of the Utah Legislature.

You sure can't walk along the 16th Street Mall — the milelong pedestrian and shopping thoroughfare that is at the heart of the Mile High City — without bumping into Democrats. They're everywhere. Swarms of them. They're wearing hats and buttons that say "Hope is on the Way" and T-shirts that say "Obama in the House" with a portrait of presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama superimposed over the White House.

How do I know they're all Democrats?

"If they're here, they're a Democrat," is how Bill Dooling put it. I ran into Bill and his friend, John Hurley, as I first turned onto the lower end of the 16th Street Mall and started walking east. I deduced that their voices indicated they were not from around here. It turned out I was right. They are from a city back East called Boston, site of the 2004 Democratic National Convention. For that convention they had to take a subway. This 2008 version required a five-hour plane ride and then what Bill described as "an eight-hour cab ride" from the airport.

"Take a cab ride like that in Boston and you're in Vermont," he said.

But Dooling and Hurley, Vietnam veterans who are with the group "Vets For Obama," were nonplussed about the extra travel time. "We are thrilled to be here," said Hurley. "Denver is a perfect fit for this convention. It's like the future of America out here."

I told them I was from Utah, where this many Democrats hadn't assembled in one place since, well, since never.

"You mean Orrin Hatch isn't a Democrat?" said Hurley.

These men were feeling no pain.

It was that way all along the mall. Fifty thousand Democrats have descended on Denver for their national convention, and from the looks of it all but a couple hundred were downtown Sunday afternoon, wearing something that had "Hope" on it.

Kathy, a woman who lives in Denver and works on 16th Street during the week, stood on a street corner and stared in outright awe.

"I came down to see what was going on," she said. "It's kind of unbelievable how many people are here. On a normal Sunday right now this place would be dead."

Every one of Denver's 42,000 hotel rooms is booked through Thursday night to either a Democrat or someone who darn well better say they're a Democrat.

In true Democrat fashion, the overflows are staying with other Democrats.

"I couldn't get a room," said Bill Dooling. "And when an Iraqi vet heard vets were looking for a place, he gave us his condo."