I was fortunate to be elected an alternate delegate for the 5th Congressional district in Maryland, a district led by Steny Hoyer, an admirable man by all counts.

I'll go over my DNC 2004 experience as best as I can recall.

Sunday-Arrived
I hung out with a couple of friends. It was my second time in Boston, so there was some sightseeing. I will say that I am impressed with the city. Besides being a beautiful place, it has personality. We stopped by Quincy Market, an open air shopping center with outdoor performers etc. I loved it. I'm not one to generally gawk at performers, but there was this guy who was a general performer, i.e., juggling while spinning a plate on his mouth and balancing on rolling stuff, he was nothing short of amazing.

It was great to see fellow Kerryites out there-there weren't as many demonstrations as I thought. We sae the MSNBC set up and Chris Matthews was doing a show. I got a picture me and Chris behind me, I hope it turns out.

Being in Boston, there was a major buzz about the Yankees coming to town, so we were parked in front of a TV by 8 pm. To my surprise Kerry was at Fenway with prime sitting. Apparently he did a ceremonial pitch which I missed. He seemed pretty comfortable. I always feel queasy about politicians being at sports events because it looks contrived. But Kerry is a bonafide Red Sox fan. There was a Kerry interview at some point which I hated. It went on too long and this was while stuff was happening--bad pr because the game was a nationally televised game on ESPN and sports fans watching could care less about Kerry's views on the DH.

The buzz from the news networks was that conventions, now are scripted and contain no drama. Confirmed how stupid I think some of these people are. They are there to report the news. It also confirms that entertainment, not news, drives them. What they were interested in was "drama."

Anyway, at the end of the day, I was somewhat excited and a touch apprehensive. I realized that the convention was make or break, so there was the natural nervousness about the whole thing being a success.