Dems return home revved up

Local Democrats who made the trip to Denver this week are returning home energized by the historic convention.

"It was as good a convention as we've ever had in terms of the production of it and getting the message across," South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler said. "The highlight, of course, was Senator (Barack) Obama's speech last night, but the whole occasion ... in the stadium was just breathtaking, to see all those people who turned out."

Charleston businessman and Obama supporter David Agnew, who was attending his fourth convention, said it was by far the best he has seen.

"Some of those conventions haven't seemed that substantive to me, but this one did," he said. "The level of enthusiasm and passion ran high all week."

Waring Howe Jr. said some voters might have wondered what Obama has meant when he has talked about change, but he answered them Thursday night.

"He answered that very specifically in terms of his plans for his form of tax cuts, his reducing our dependency on foreign sources of energy, his presenting a new American face to the world in foreign policy," Howe said.

But the convention wasn't all work and no play.

Howe said parties often kept him up after midnight, and he enjoyed mingling with celebrities such as director Spike Lee, actors Matthew Modine and Susan Sarandon and U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken.

Fowler said those in Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver couldn't help but be moved listening to Obama on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. "Everywhere you looked people were wiping their eyes," she added.

U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn told Public Broadcasting Service talk show host Charlie Rose that he choked up a little during the speech, which he said meant the most "to fourth- and fifth-graders who have been told, 'You can be anything you want to be,' but who really did not believe that" until now.

Agnew said the most important message Obama delivered "is that the stakes are high and that Barack Obama is ready to fight for the future of this country."