Firsthand report on Obama’s nomination in Denver, Pueblo runners raise drug abuse awareness, Taoseños’ take on ‘68 Chicago Democratic Convention
– 10 YEARS AGO – ‘Conventioneers caught in Obama’s ‘audacious hope’ ‘ By Patricia Chambers Sept. 4, 2008
Reporter Patricia Chambers experienced firsthand Barack Obama’s acceptance speech of his nomination as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in Denver’s Invesco Field. An estimated 80,000 people attended the event, which was moved out of the Pepsi Center where the rest of the Democrats’ convention had been held.
Her first-person account includes a description of the streets around the stadium where the Denver Broncos play. “Shuttle buses carried reporters, delegates and supporters who wanted to be a part of history from the Pepsi Center and the park and ride lot at Coors Field (where the Rockies play). Others went by foot in lines that stretched for miles along the sidewalks and streets,” she wrote. Compared to that scene, Chambers felt “getting inside the stadium was easier than it looked.”
She described the people in her section and the crowd overall as “in good spirits” even though it would be hours before the candidate appeared. One woman danced and sang to the music being played over the speakers. When someone apologized for disrupting one row of spectators as she carried her nachos to her seat, the woman, who Chambers dubbed “our cheerleader,” said, “This is a good day for America. Everybody should be happy. The least we can do for each other is stand up and let you pass.”
Then Chambers reported that then New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson spoke along with former Vice President Al Gore. Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow both performed at the event.
When Obama appeared and simultaneously images of his family appeared on a video screen, the crowd reacted with a roar.
Chambers explained that about 1,000 New Mexicans got credentials to be in the stadium due to the work of Brian Colon, who was chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico at the time, and the state convention delegation.
Chambers also summarized her coverage of the first few days of the convention by relaying the repeated topics she heard from conversations among Democrat delegates, not only from New Mexico but from other states as well. As Chambers put it, “They saw the possibility of affordable and accessible health care for everyone, affordable education for their children and honor from the man they want in the White House.”
Obama, of course, turned that “possibility” into his campaign catchphrase, “the audacity of hope.”
– 25 YEARS AGO – ‘Running for a drug-free state’ By Rick Romancito Sept. 9, 1993
Taos and Picuris Pueblos were sending 10 runners each to a relay run from the Colorado border, through Taos, and on to the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque to raise awareness about the need for drug abuse prevention in Native communities throughout New Mexico.
The run was scheduled to begin Sept. 15 north of Questa, taking three days to reach Albuquerque. Each relay team would have two to five runners, whose members planned to make many stops at Pueblos along the way. At each stop, additional runners would join the relay team for a stretch in solidarity with the cause: the statewide Red Ribbon Campaign to prevent drug and alcohol abuse.
Taos Pueblo was planning on hosting the runners from the Questa leg on the afternoon of the first day. The runners would be welcomed with ceremonies and then put up for the night. The next day the team would take on the next leg from Taos to Santa Fe with stops at Picuris, San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Nabe, Pojoaque and Tesuque. The last day of the relay included Cochiti, Santo Domingo, Santa Ana, San Felipe and Sandia pueblos.
At the end of the relay, two runners from each pueblo would enter the state fairgrounds sometime around noon. The Screaming Eagles drum group from Taos Pueblo was scheduled to perform at the festivities marking the end of the race.
Although most runners were to be from various tribes, Anglos and Hispanic runners were welcome to participate as well.
Drug abuse prevention continues to be a top priority in Northern New Mexico. Such a statewide celebration of fitness, tradition and community seems like one of the more appropriate ways to promote it.
– 50 YEARS AGO – ‘Two Taos Demo Views: That Chicago’ Staff report Sept. 5, 1968
Two Taoseño delegates to the contentious, and often violent, 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago presented markedly different views of the event that encapsulated the entire decade’s anti-war movement running up against the “establishment,” or status quo of the American political system and the capitalist economy.
The two delegates’ versions of events may have had much to do with their political allegiances in the primaries: Stephen A. Mitchell went to Chicago as the National Democratic Convention manager for anti-war candidate and Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy. Andy Vigil was Taos County Democratic chairman and a committed delegate to Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, the Democratic Party’s nominee and the candidate favored by the national party at the convention.
For the younger reader, some background: This convention drew thousands of anti-war activists who camped and demonstrated in Chicago’s Grant Park across the street from the convention center hotel. Richard J. Daley, then mayor of Chicago, the boss of the Chicago Democratic organization and a leader of the Illinois delegation, ordered his police to quell the demonstrations with force, arresting many and using tear gas and clubs on the mostly young demonstrators. (Rock group Crosby, Stills & Nash even wrote a song about it.)
Inside the hall, things were not much quieter. As Taos’ Mitchell described it: “The condition in the hall came close to chaos. It was difficult to hear, to see or to think. There was a feeling of fear from traveling to the hall along guarded roads; a most rough and truculent attitude by guards at the hall itself—rough handling of delegates and guests.”
Mitchell said that a man named John Criswell, a former Oklahoma senator’s staffer who was chief convention organizer and allied with then President Lyndon Johnson and Mayor Daley, took McCarthy delegates’ 40 hotel rooms away from them and gave them to delegates supporting Lester Maddox, Georgia’s anti-integration governor.
(Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection earlier in 1968 due largely to the growing national opposition to the never-ending Vietnam War Johnson had long escalated. His candidate was Vice President Humphrey.)
“(Criswell) was the undoubted convention boss,” Mitchell said, although the national television coverage mostly showed Mayor Daley managing what was going on inside and outside the hall from the floor. Mitchell said that Criswell’s efforts to shut down McCarthy’s delegates extended to shutting down phone service to their section of the hall. “Even the limited radio system broke down. We had to use messages by teletype.”
Meanwhile, Vigil came to Daley’s defense: “Mayor Richard J. Daley handled the problems in the only way possible. I can’t see that—that mob takeover—happening in America.
“When we got to the Palmer House (an iconic Chicago hotel), where we were staying, the place smelled...stink bombs had been thrown in the lobby. The smell still was there when we left.
“Thousands of hippies and yippies were trying to take over. I saw the Grant Park battle on Wednesday night from a bus. If that mob had been let loose, I can’t imagine what would have happened,” Vigil said. He added that the battles that night were reactions of “bad losers.” That night, the convention had nominated Humphrey to run for president.
Nevertheless, Vigil insisted that he “respect the man McCarthy and his delegates. I think it’s time to unite, not revolt.”
Humphrey lost the ‘68 election to Richard M. Nixon, who won reelection in 1972 and resigned the office in 1974 after the House Judiciary Committee voted to begin impeachment proceedings for obstruction of justice among other crimes. He was later pardoned by his successor and vice president, President Gerald Ford.
Nixon also pulled American troops out of Vietnam in March 1973.