Dear Eric,

   Just a few minutes before I board my plane for Boston. The last few days have been a round of telephone tag with various Press people, plans to connect in Boston . . .

     I finally got around to reading my delegation materials and discovered there are two of us priests from the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota in our delegation.  The other is Rev. Doyle Turner of the White Earth reservation, former chairman of White Earth.

     The airport shuttle driver this morning confided that he has encountered only one couple who support Bush, but lots of people who say they voted for him before and won't again.  The driver himself says he had sympathy for Bush for about three months after 9/11, but no longer.  We discussed Farenheit 9/11 (which he hasn't seen).  He said he didn't think Bush's sitting in the classroom after the attack was so bad -- most of us were paralyzed and didn't know what to do. (Personally, I'd expect more from the nation's leader, though.)

     The day didn't get off to a great start for me, though, when I read the USA Today interview with John Kerry.  He kept repeating that "it's my convention" and that we delegates are supposed to be nice and not say mean things about Bush (that was the tone, anyway -- we're not supposed to be rude like Whoopi).  If the convention is going to be that much of a snore, if we're not going to tap into the energy we feel about getting rid of Bush, then this campaign is heading down the road to doom.  "People powered Howard" didn't get that way by being "me too" in any way, shape, or form.  I'm one who was against the war from the get-go.  My late, great Senator Paul Wellstone, even though he was running for re-election, voted "no," and was the only such Senator to do so.

Blessings,
 
Linda+