DENVER
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama moves out of this historical swing-state convention and into the Labor Day weekend with his political fate in the hands of regular people who work for a living.
Sponsors of the four-day Democratic parley here included a condom company with a weird pavilion inside the security perimeter and a guy parading around the Pepsi Center entrance in a costume as the mascot for a rum company.
All this is part of a corporate motif that both major parties embrace these days. So it was easy at first glance to forget that the Democrats are still assumed to be the party of organized labor.
Behind the scenes, various unions held an intensive flurry of meetings. The essential theme: finalizing the conversion of Clinton supporters and Edwards supporters into Obama supporters.
This process was under way by June when the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees, whose umbrella covers 1.4 million members, announced its backing for the then-nominee-in-waiting.
Seen at the morning conclaves of the New York delegation across the week were labor leaders such as Gary LaBarbera, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, and John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor. American Federation of Teachers leader Randi Wein- garten was very visibly on hand as Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling out from the New York delegation, stopped the roll call in Obama's favor.
Professor Alan Chartock, a New York political analyst for decades, said from the convention hall: "What Barack Obama needs to do to win is make sure the working class signs on. That, according to pollsters, is what he's not been able to do."
He cited running-mate Joseph Biden's extended introduction on Wednesday night. "By introducing Grandma Biden and announcing her entire name and all the Irish names in it, that was a brilliant stroke," Chartock said. He also cited Michelle Obama's depiction of her dad, who was a Chicago city employee.
Thomas Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, said yesterday: "In Joe Biden, we had the perfect candidate - for Long Island certainly - who is Mr. Irish Catholic Family, and I can't tell you how many people look at Joe Biden and say he's just like me when I was growing up."
Steve Bellone, the Babylon supervisor, said: "He needs to hammer home the theme of working-class and middle-class families that have been the heart of this convention. He truly represents those values."
The satiric Onion hit an interesting chord in a mock-news Web video replete with "experts" celebrating how far we've come in America, when a white millionaire can slam an African-American rival as "elitist."
Throughout the primary campaign, you heard about the impact of free-trade agreements on American jobs and whose health plan would be more effective in covering more Americans.
Obama played the populist card last night. "Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it," he said. "I will cut taxes ... on 95 percent of working families."
Now Obama looks to ply those issues in a forum even bigger than Invesco Field: all of working America.