McCain Expected to Name Pawlenty VP

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty

John McCain has made his choice for Vice President, and although its not official, many expect it to be Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Pawlenty is young (at 48 years old), the governor of a blue state, and a rising star in the GOP, whose conservatism would offset McCain's "maverick" image.

The announcement should come by Monday at the latest.

Finally, Bar-ack HAS COME BACK to Minnesota (Part Two)

The invisible man can still draw a crowd

While the South Dakota and Montana polls closed and Hillary made her (not really a) concession speech, we were kept in the dark. The scoreboard stayed showing crowd shots (even with a crowd this hype, it got really old after the camera had been around the arena three times,) Obama highlight reels, and that Will I am video (overheard by some people near me: “Who’s that tall one?” “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.” “Who?” “The guy who did the skyhook.” “Ohhhh, him.” Somehow I think that description didn’t help.) Most of the crowd had no idea that Hill Dawg did not actually concede during her speech, as we missed out on the tragic story of the kid who sold his bike and video games so we could hear a medley of songs that included U2’s “City of Blinding Light,” The All American Rejects “Move Along” (a subliminal shot at the Clinton campaign?) and at least one country song that had something to do with America, or at least had “America” somewhere in the hook. Hell, if not for the couple with the binoculars that could see into the luxury boxes (which were all tuned to MSNBC despite the fact that no one was using them,) I wouldn’t even have known that she gave a speech.

Yes, the best shot of her I got was on the scoreboard. Be mad.

Finally, at about 9 p.m. (there were no clocks in the arena,) University of Minnesota communications teacher Joann Syverson gave her introduction. Even though most of the crowd had no idea who she was, her speech went over incredibly well to the warmed up crowd, even though she was playfully booed for admitting she was at one time a Republican. Then she said the words “Michelle and Bar . . .” and at that point my hearing almost stopped (BTW, the purple dress on Michelle was a nice touch.) The X was going absolutely batshit insane. I’ve seen a Senator who got 85% of his state’s vote speak on election night, and I saw George W Bush speak, months after 9/11 (you know, when he was still popular) in a very Republican town. Take the reaction to those two events, combine them with the Minnesota Wild’s first ever franchise victory (which also happened to be the first event at Xcel I ever attended) and you still don’t have the reaction Obama got from that crowd. He could have gone up there to read the warranty on his microwave and people would have absolutely loved it.

Hey, is that John Cand . . . nope, just some blogger.

If you saw the speech, you know what happened. He declared victory in the Democratic race, thanked Hill Dawg for putting up a fight and started in on McCain. At times, the crowd was too loud to even hear him, so I had to turn to the closed captioning on the scoreboard. Around me, everyone was standing. Several times the candidate had to stop and quiet the crowd, like during the Orwellian moment when a random “Yes We Can” chant broke out.

At about 9:45, the speech ended and people eventually filed out of the arena. Aside from being asked to save suffering animals in South St. Paul (isn’t telling me about something that lives in South St. Paul “suffering” redundant?) it was a peaceful walk to my car.

A few months from now, the scene at the X will be quite different. It will be Republicans packing the house to hear John McCain (among dozens of others) speak. And while I don’t doubt there will be some memorable moments at the RNC, the bar has been set pretty high if they want to turn this traditionally blue state red in November.

Finally Ba-rack HAS COME BACK to Minnesota (Part One)

The first thing I noticed was the helicopters. Stepping out of my car (don’t ask what I paid for parking, I’m trying to block it out of my memory,) I saw at least three news copters hovering above downtown St. Paul for what would turn out to be Barack Obama’s victory speech.

I had only attended one other political victory speech before, when I was assigned to cover the Herb Kohl and Gwen Moore victory party in 2006. That was at the reception hall of Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee in front of maybe a couple hundred people. Outside of some brief cameos by local TV news correspondents, there was little media presence there. It was a charming little affair with a table full of snacks, free beer and a lot of people walking around in baseball caps and hoodies.

This was (reportedly) 17,000 people in a big-time arena, one that will play host to the Republican National Convention in September, covered by every important news outlet in the country and broadcast live across several networks.

Needless to say, there was no snack table and free beer.

After a quick bite and a couple drinks at Patrick McGovern’s (the artichoke dip is delicious but in no way should that much food ever be considered an appetizer) I made my way to the Xcel Energy Center amid a swarm of people. While most were lined up outside the arena to see the speech, others were there to try and make a buck. There were street vendors selling a variety of Obama buttons and t-shirts, and some of them seemed to making money hand over fist. Though there were some clever designs, none matched a homemade shirt worn by an over 30 white woman that said “White woman over 30 for Obama.” Stylish AND practical. Never underestimate people’s willingness to buy a cheaply made article of clothing they’ll only wear once and forget about if they see other people doing the same thing.

Can't knock the hustle

We then had the pleasure of waiting in a line that started across the street from the arena, which is every bit the logistical nightmare it sounds like. This gave me a chance to interact with my fellow Minnesotans. Typical conversation went something like this.

“This is the line?”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“This is some bullshit.”
“Pretty much.”

Waiting to get in

Three days later, we were finally in the building, and after being told to walk all the way to the other end of the arena because those were the open seats, then told that those seats were full and the open seats were in fact on the other end of the arena (the one we entered) I was finally able to sit down. I was, appropriately enough, in between two college freshmen and a senior citizen couple.

The scoreboard in the arena was showing MSNBC’s election coverage, and all I’m going to say is you haven’t really seen Tim Russert until you’ve seen him on a jumbotron. This was how much of the crowd seemed to pass the time while waiting for the rest of the arena to fill out, since for some insane reason they weren’t selling beer. Then again, considering this is one of only six states that actually forces stores to stock 3.2 beer (if you don’t know what that is, you’re lucky,) it’s not that surprising.

More Chris Matthews than you thought possible

But even so, people were fired up. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak got loud ovations from the crowd, who the scoreboard was constantly telling to get “fired up.” When MSNBC showed a map of where some of John McCain’s possible running mates might come from, people cheered for about thirty seconds when Minnesota was shown (Gov. Tim Pawlenty is a long-time McCain ally,) until they realized exactly what the pundits were talking about.

Even though we were an arena full of people who were technically watching nothing, it had the feel of a sporting event. Vendors roamed the aisles selling overprices soda and popcorn, fans held up letters spelling out “CHANGE,” the camera panned the audience putting people on the scoreboard (most common reactions on the scoreboard were, in order: waving, throwing a peace sign, giving the double thumbs up, flashing devil/metal horns, and one guy in a maroon U of M shirt who threw up the ROC.) At some point, people even started doing the wave. All that was missing was the annoying clamor of Thunderstix.

Hey, you guys misspelled "Char . . " oh wait, I gotcha

I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to point out the Xcel Center’s brilliant crowd manipulation. During John McCain’s speech, which the crowd initially booed but soon got bored with, they cut to a scoreboard shot of the quickly-filling-up arena, which led to a loud cheer. They quickly cut back to McCain (booooo) but then back to the crowd (hey, that’s us! Yaaaaaaaay!) People who have been waiting all day for something are not hard to draw a reaction out of.