Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my law-enforcement officers. Imagine my glee as I headed to the breakfast area of our hotel (in my pajamas) to find 20-ish of the Treasury Department’s officers eating their breakfast. We’d see them later at the security check-in point.

Jane and I headed to the park, following the Treasury Department guys. At the crosswalk in front of the greek columns, we saw a sight we’d seen and done many times in the last year-and-a-half: volunteers signing up volunteers at the crosswalk and traffic-signal light. Volunteers worked the supporters waiting in line, too. As was the practice when phonebanking in the office or satellite locations, we cheered and clapped when someone signed up to volunteer or added another shift to their current commitment. There was a lot of cheering and clapping. We met a mountain man and his wife. He set a goal of knocking on 2,000 doors for Obama-Biden. The day before the rally he’d hit 200. Wow!

Different volunteer pictured here.

As Jane saw to us getting our VIP passes, I noticed how long was the line and getting longer and longer. Supporters were pouring out of the buses and trains. Security, police and city workers kept moving the barricades back farther and farther. The line snaked around the art museums, the northeast side of the park, down the street perpendicular to the Denver U.S. Mint, and on and on. More WOW!

Beginning of the line:

In the rally, Denver’s Mayor spoke, U.S. Representative Diana DeGette, Federico Peña, former mayor of Denver and Secretary of Transportation and Energy during the Clinton Administration, U.S. Senator Salazar, and Governor Ritter spoke. The theme was quite clear: ENERGY. The idea is to transition Colorado’s dying mining economy to the new energy sector economy through education, investment and tax incentives. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is located just north in Golden. This level of support from elected leaders and the clear show of support by the people attending the rally is exactly how Senators Obama and Biden are going to make the transition a success for Colorado.

It may have been Governor Ritter who said, “Look at the size of the crowd!” I hadn’t seen how many people were behind us until I heard those words and turned around. Good glory be. Look at all those people. At least triple the size that would fit in the amphitheater, which holds about 34,000. It’s easy to believe 100,000 supporters were there. It was the largest outdoor campaign-speech audience in U.S. history.

While we were waiting we took pictures of the Obama-Biden Colorado campaign bus. We watched the flurry that is always the giving out of rally signs just before Senator Obama arrives. The group holding the “Colorado 4 Obama” sign started the Mexican wave and after about 20 tries, the wave got nearly half-way back to the capital steps. It really was a sight to see. By this stage in the campaign, we’re all so well organized that we can get nearly 50,000 people to do unrehearsed choreography.

Senator Obama delivered his closing arguments. Galen and his team heard it in Reno, NV the day before. I was so excited to hear it live, in person, and so up close. Thanks always go to Jane!

The early morning had been cold because of the wind and light cloud cover. Every day in Aurora the daytime highs were in the 70s. Today was colder. When Senator Obama came onto the stage and waved at us the clouds broke and the sun shone. The wind died down. When he finished, the clouds covered the sun again. No, I’m not kidding.

I’ll be back in Denver and Aurora next week, coming in on Friday. Rain and wind are predicted, but we can change that too.