The air was thin, the sun was strong and the view of the stage was horrible. But that didn't dampen the enthusiasm of Democrats who sat in the cheap seats all the way at the top of Invesco Field at Mile High.
The air was thin, the sun was strong and the view of the stage was horrible. But that didn't dampen the enthusiasm of Democrats who sat in the cheap seats all the way at the top of Invesco Field at Mile High.
"The sound's going to be better up here," unconvincingly insisted Ellen Little, 19, of Charlotte, N.C. She stood out in her orange dress in Section 503, a lone sentinel for Obama lounging alone with her iPod four rows from the top of the stadium.
And on top of everything, she's afraid of heights! "Eleanor Roosevelt said 'Do one thing every day that scares you,'" Little said, shrugging. "Heights scare me, so I'm up here."
Adam Luensman of Marion, Iowa, didn't mince words about his situation, however. "This is the only place I could get seats," he said.
His wife, Ebony, an Iowa delegate, got a good seat on the floor on the floor, but the only thing her husband could see from the top row on section 532 was the tiny backs of the people at the lecterns and their faces on the stadium screens.
The view would be better on a television screen at home, but "it's my first time in Denver, and my first time at a convention," Luensman said. "This is historic, and I wanted to be here."
Terry Jackson, 46, is also in the cheap seats, but at least he's on the right side of the stage in section 506. He still couldn't see the speakers' faces, but the screens made up for that.
"I just glad to be here, man," said Jackson, who worked a half-day at his job as a firmware engineer and then drove from Lafayette, Colo., to get his seat in the stadium eight hours before Obama spoke. "This might be the first black president in history. This is history."
Casey Martin, a 24-year-old barista from Colorado Springs, volunteers for the Obama campaign, but ended up in the nosebleed seats in front of the stage anyway. He described himself as "entirely outside the political process" until he heard Obama's speech at the last Democratic convention.
When Obama won the Iowa caucus, Martin said, "it actually seemed like there was an actual chance to get something done."
Martin said he put in hours of canvassing and phone calls to people, and spent most of that time talking to Democrats about Obama's positions on various issues like the war and the economy.
"Mostly, it was answering their questions. If people were interested, we'd try to get them to come in and volunteer. A lot of times I would say I'm from the Obama campaign and they would say "Oh, yay,' right away," Martin said.
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