DENVER – The spirits of the California delegates, special guests and mere spectators lucky enough to be here for this moment of history were beyond mile-high.
Barack Obama lit the open night sky and the emotions of 84,000 people with a speech full of passion and power. Bill Clinton had finally embraced him as a candidate "on the right side of history" and with the sizzle of youth he savored himself in 1992.
Hillary Rodham Clinton stilled fears of disharmony, dramatically announcing, "Let's declare together in one voice, right here, right now, that Barack Obama is our candidate."
And yet, after a long summer of hurt feelings, intra-party squabbles and sustained attacks from Republican John McCain, delegates left their Denver convention knowing that Obama is struggling for traction in swing states.
Even as they expect a post-convention bounce, Democrats know they have work to do. Despite his charisma and drawing power, their historic candidate still faces historic challenges.
Former California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown is worried.
"We are as excited as we were in 1960," he said, comparing Obama's convention and closing speech at Invesco Field at Mile High with the '60 convention and Los Angeles Coliseum speech of John F. Kennedy. "But that excitement must not stop here in Denver. We've got to exceed everything we've done to elect him president of the United States."
Sherry Holland wasn't wasting any time. Packed in with thousands of people streaming out of Invesco Field after Obama's Thursday night speech, the Santa Barbara executive assistant and convention delegate was shouting into her cell phone.
"We have to keep working. I'm not going to stop for a moment," she said.
Holland, the Obama campaign phone bank coordinator for Santa Barbara County, was stirred by more than her candidate's speech. She was pushed to keep working by a procession of closing night speakers – unglamorous, average Americans – who spoke of the challenges of living without health insurance or losing their jobs.
One of the people the party spotlighted, a Midwest factory worker named Barney Smith whose job was outsourced to another country, sent the stadium crowd into a frenzy when he said simply: "We need an America that puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney."
"He was awesome," Holland said. "It said to us, 'You've got to look out for your neighbors. You've got to look for the little guy.' "
Before the Denver convention, Dan Curtain, political director of the California Conference of Carpenters in Sacramento, feared the voices of working Americans were being lost in the Obama campaign as Republicans exploited the candidate's own drawing power to mock him as a celebrity, shallow and disconnected.
Curtain said he was watching political tracking polls for independent voters and "the numbers were dwindling."
But on Thursday night, Curtain said, he heard from Obama what the country needed to hear – the story of a man whose grandfather "marched in Patton's Army" and whose single mother "once turned to food stamps" to support her children.
"He showed by his own life's story that he was not the exotic interloper that McCain portrayed," said Curtain, a convention guest. "He's got a real American story."
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi conceded that McCain has run an effective summer campaign to blunt Obama's momentum.
"Obama didn't," Garamendi said before the Thursday speech. "He didn't take the offense and got himself put on the defensive."
But Garamendi said the closely fought primary with Clinton, whom he supported, inspired a historic surge in party voter registration. He said new voters helped turn even some California inland counties from red to blue, a positive trend for swing states.
The competitive campaign also drew people such as Bruce Morasca, a 55-year-old grocery clerk from Gilroy, who Thursday scored the ticket of a lifetime and a seat in the upper tier of Invesco Field for Obama's speech.
Morasca originally supported Clinton, viewing her as more fit for political battle than the less tested Obama. But after Obama went after McCain in his speech as a man "who doesn't get it" about the economy and "stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war," Morasca found the inspiration he craved.
"He (Obama) is our leader now and he is going after McCain in any and every way he can," Morasca said. "That's what I needed him to say: that he is going to be a fighter."
Call Peter Hecht, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5539.
