DNC NOTES
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, keynoting the Democratic National Convention, said last night that American voters "have one shot to get it right" by electing Barack Obama president to end Republican leadership that is stuck in the past. Warner rebuked President George W. Bush and GOP nominee-to-be John McCain, but his address was hardly a summons to political arms against them. He mentioned McCain's name only twice, and the entrepreneur said he'd learned in the cell phone business that made him millions that a strategy of tearing down the competition doesn't suffice. "I know we're at the Democratic convention, but if an idea works, it really doesn't matter if it has an R or a D next to it," Warner said. "Because this election isn't about liberal versus conservative. It's not about left versus right. It's about the future versus the past." And "in George Bush and John McCain's America, far too many" people don't know whether that future will hold what they need, said Warner, who argued that Obama will change that. - The Associated Press
After initially being denied a speaking role at the convention, Rep. Charles Rangel, a Harlem Democrat and the House Ways and Means chairman, took the podium yesterday to praise the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, who died unexpectedly last week. She was the first black woman to serve on the powerful Ways and Means committee. Standing with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rangel said, "We owe it to Stephanie ... we owe it to the people who say that we will not live these last eight years again in this great country ... This November we will change the course of this great nation of ours so that racism and sexism will not be on the agenda, we'll have a fair tax system and a great health system, we will stop this doggone immoral war ..." - CRAIG GORDON
Thirteen anti-abortion activists, including Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, were arrested yesterday at a demonstration in which they blocked a security gate near the Democratic convention. Terry shouted "Don't vote for Obama!" as he was led to a waiting sheriff's van. At the other end of downtown, about a dozen anti-abortion demonstrators rallied outside the Sheraton Hotel, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton were at a luncheon sponsored by Emily's List. Earlier yesterday, a group of about 50 anti-abortion activists unfurled a huge sign on a mesa west of Denver, equating the convention with abortion. They later removed it at the request of authorities. - The Associated Press
Three men who authorities feared were plotting to assassinate Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention would face only gun charges - a signal that officials believe they never posed a real threat, a federal law enforcement official said. The charges, following Sunday's arrests, had not been filed as of yesterday. - The Associated Press
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