Arianna Huffington

It's a bit early for Halloween, but I'd like to suggest what we have in the GOP's McCain-Palin '08 ticket are a pair of zombie candidates. And I'm not just saying this because McCain's old and looks a little desiccated. Hear me out.

Zombies: they don't know they're dead. They just keep stiff-leggedly lurching around trying to eat human flesh and human brains 'til someone stops them and buries them for good.

…Or “Who’s Legend Killer Stalking Now?” See if you can name the famous person or government official Legend Killer is harassing in each picture. If you can name all six, you win a prize — a personal stalking from Legend Killer himself!

Yep, Bob Graham

Jay McGovern, but we already knew LK was stalking him…

Tallahassee City Commissioner Andrew Gillum

The John McCain contingent at the Convention Center

Arianna Huffington

Dan Rather, who can’t get away fast enough

Anyone have any more of these pictures? I’m sure I saw some others being taken. E-mail them to me at quinnelk [at] hotmail [dot] com

One of the best kept secrets of the convention was the Starz Green Room. The Starz Green Room is a consortium of entertainment groups that sponsored a series of book signings, movie screenings, and panel discussions during the convention. The events were held in the Starz Film Center at the University of Colorado Denver.

On Monday, my friend Pat Kemp (Obama elected delegate from District 11 and Vice-Chair of the Hillsborough DEC) and I stumbled onto Starz. It became our home away from home in Denver. The venues were intimate and uncrowded, and the panels top-notch. I wish I had been able to attend more.

I tend to get carried away when I take notes, and have a hard time editing myself, so please bear with my verbosity.

There’s a tremendous amount of progressive stuff going on around the convention and much is pointed at the bloggers. The Big Tent, where the bloggers are concentrated, has an upstairs hall where panels lay plans and speculate hopefully about the new world around the corner in an Obama administration.

Here are some notes from Tuesday afternoon’s panels under the rubric of Take Back America (check out ourfuture.org).

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, beat the drum hard for universal health care, pointing out it was the main complaint she heard canvassing voters in the ultimately successful drive to put a Democrat in the Illinois seat held by former Speaker Dennis Hastert. The result, she said disproved the old nostrum that politicians didn’t care about the issue because “no politician ever has lost for being against universal health care.”

“Sixty people a day die for lack of health insurance,” she said.

Barack Obama must be backed by a movement of people demanding universal health care to make it happen, she said.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California said the modest progress in Congress on the Iraq war issue is entirely due to relentless pressure from the progressive community, which must strive to become the mainstream of the Democratic Party.