COMMENTARY: A glimpse Into the DNC circus

With the close of the Beijing Olympics, Denver had the greatest show on Earth. The four-day Democratic National Convention, ending Thursday with Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field, was the biggest of circuses, a three-ring affair bringing politicians, profiteers and protesters to the Mile High City.

The media hordes - an estimated 15,000 of them from CNN's Anderson Cooper to basement bloggers - broadcast the pageantry and the pompousness to a worldwide audience.

Delegates, who were outnumbered 3-to-1, were treated like royalty, sometimes surrounded by a ring of reporters. Local delegate Ben Taber was on Fox News and Brenda Krause was interviewed by a Japanese TV station and Al-Jazeera a few hours apart.

Despite the frenzied atmosphere, or perhaps because of it, it was hard to leave Denver without a fuller appreciation for democracy and capitalism in America.

We witnessed the carefully orchestrated speeches and rituals in the convention hall, as Hillary and Bill Clinton did their darndest to prove they really are behind nominee Barack Obama. They preached unity in their speeches and tried to make it tangible when Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the delegate votes from New York that gave Obama his victory.

The unexpected moments were more telling. Some of Clinton's delegates openly grieved when she released them. Sometimes spacey Dennis Kucinich gave one of the most rousing speeches of the convention, shouting "Wake up America!" again and again. And Gazette photographer Bryan Oller witnessed the Rev. Jesse Jackson being denied access to the floor of the Pepsi Center. He was none too happy.

Jackson was not a featured speaker - not even at an "I Have a Dream" anniversary celebration with the Rev. Al Sharpton and many others - but his son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., got the microphone, a son in the unenviable position of disavowing his father to support a campaign and a candidate he believes in.

Many of the black delegates, in particular, seemed to have a pinch-me feeling all week, a sense that history had conspired to bring them a moment most never expected to see in their lifetimes. That sense of being present to witness history in the making lent the convention much of its energy. Even John McCain saluted a step forward for America when Obama accepted the nomination before 84,000 people at Invesco Field.

Taking advantage of that "we're present at history" elation was an army of street vendors, who set up shop throughout downtown Denver selling everything from "Goodnight Bush" books to Obama in a Bottle packages, and then created an impromptu market outside the Pepsi Center at night, using the bottlenecks created by police barricades to corral convention-goers.

One hawker's come-on: "Be a part of change, for just 10 dollars."

At times it seemed like the Denver Merchandise Convention, but even more vibrant than the marketplace of tchotchkes was the marketplace of ideas.

The convention was enlivened by the protesters and the thousands of cops who silently surrounded them as they patrolled the city on horses, bikes, motorcycles and armored vehicles. The protesters were a fairly tepid bunch altogether. Gazette columnist Barry Noreen, who remembers the Days of Rage riots during the Chicago 1968 convention, found the "Recreate '68" slogan repellent, and honestly, how worked up can war protesters get when the candidate at the convention vows to end the Iraq war?

More interesting than the intensity of the protests was the variety, from the calm educational spirit of Tent State, to folks in pig costumes who were proposing to tax meat to end global warming, to clean coal, to Clinton supporters who weren't ready to give up the fight. There were dozens of causes represented that I'd never heard of or even thought about, a cacophony of the voices of those passionate enough to stand up for something.

A handful of PUMAS (Party Unity My Ass) were still prowling the 16th Street Mall the day after Clinton gave her prime-time speech endorsing Obama. Holding onto the last threads of their hero's candidacy, they were chanting "This is what democracy looks like ... This is what democracy looks like."

That's exactly right.