At long last, it's here.Denver is front and center this week as host to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and let’s hope our city shines under the national spotlight.
There is a mix of tension and energy around this event that’s palpable. It’s been exactly 100 years since Denver hosted a major political convention. In 1908, Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, who would later lose in the general election to William Howard Taft, the hand-picked successor of Theodore Roosevelt.
Mayor John Hickenlooper has pledged that this will be “the greenest convention in the history of the planet”. That means lots of organic foods, recycling crews working downtown 24/7 and 1,000 bicycles freely available to the delegates for their use throughout the week.
It’s interesting to see the mayor driving for a green convention when Hickenlooper himself was drawn here by the oil industry, arriving in 1981 as a geologist during a time when our energy sector was booming. “We were like lemmings,” he said in a recent interview with the Denver Post. But when oil crashed in the mid 80s, he did what Denver itself has done successfully many times over – he reinvented himself and emerged from adversity even stronger.
Hickenlooper opened a saloon – the Wynkoop Brewing Company – which today stands at the center of the revitalized LoDo (“Lower Downtown”) district. His popularity and influence in reviving LoDo helped him to become elected mayor in 2003, and he was re-elected last year.
Rugged, diverse, resilient and beautiful… that’s the Colorado I love, and the one I hope America sees as it tunes in this week.
There is a mix of tension and energy around this event that’s palpable. It’s been exactly 100 years since Denver hosted a major political convention. In 1908, Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, who would later lose in the general election to William Howard Taft, the hand-picked successor of Theodore Roosevelt.
Mayor John Hickenlooper has pledged that this will be “the greenest convention in the history of the planet”. That means lots of organic foods, recycling crews working downtown 24/7 and 1,000 bicycles freely available to the delegates for their use throughout the week.
It’s interesting to see the mayor driving for a green convention when Hickenlooper himself was drawn here by the oil industry, arriving in 1981 as a geologist during a time when our energy sector was booming. “We were like lemmings,” he said in a recent interview with the Denver Post. But when oil crashed in the mid 80s, he did what Denver itself has done successfully many times over – he reinvented himself and emerged from adversity even stronger.
Hickenlooper opened a saloon – the Wynkoop Brewing Company – which today stands at the center of the revitalized LoDo (“Lower Downtown”) district. His popularity and influence in reviving LoDo helped him to become elected mayor in 2003, and he was re-elected last year.
Rugged, diverse, resilient and beautiful… that’s the Colorado I love, and the one I hope America sees as it tunes in this week.
