Before the Big Speech

Los Angeles - Kwesi Mfume, C.E.O and president of NAACP, is not pleased that his organization  was denied speaking time at the Republican convention in Philadelphia. After a few jokes about Republicans, he focuses his speech on discrimination and intolerance.

"Bigots," says Mfume, "come in all colors."

Here in the Upper Concourse, the nosebleed section of the Staples Center, his speech is well received. Already the house is packed and the aisles are overflowing with rather impatient folks eager to hear Gore's speech. As I stand up to talk to an acquaintance in another aisle, I am actually pushed out of the way, hard, by a man who is bound and determined to keep clear his line of sight.

This is definitely a good seat because of the unobstructed view of the speaker's podium and the delegates, just in time for the close of Mfume's speech.

"On Election Day we all get a chance to be equal," Mfume concludes.

Plus Donna Blitzer, Al Gore's campaign manager, Bobby Wood, ex-Black Panther and Rev. Jesse Jackson have all been interviewed right next to me by various Tribune affiliates.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa has an original, and sincerely touching, introduction. He delivers it using sign language, with a translator speaking for him. Harkin learned sign language to speak to his late brother, who was deaf.  A nicely made point leading into a speech based around the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The theme tonight is the diversity of the party. The beginning of California Rep. Maxine Waters' speech is almost word-for-word Rep. John Lewis' speech of the night before.

"We go to church and mosques and synagogues," Waters says. "We are straight and we are gay."
Perhaps the idea is that if the democrats repeat the speech often enough, they will be able to drive home last night's point that the Democratic Party is, as speakers said through the week,  the "party of the people, not the party of the powerful."

The Big Speech.

When Tipper Gore appears on the stage to introduce her husband, the delegates hail their new Queen ... er, First Lady, with applause and cheers.

More hoots and hollers greet the pictures of the Gore family that have been compiled into a video narrated by Tipper, highlighting Gore's personal life. Then Gore appears on stage.  Gore's speech is not earth shattering. Though his jokes are funny.  Gore even adlibs a bit in a joke commenting on the 62 cents change that he says Republican tax cuts will bring to the middle class.

"It's not nothing," Gore admits.

That gets big laughs.

He makes one promise, of which college students nation-wide should be aware. Gore says that he wants to make most college-tuition tax deductible. Wow. If he can do that, he has my vote. I still have graduate school.