Arkansas delegates were still raving about Monday night’s Michelle Obama’s speech as the delegation gathered this morning.

Arkansans said Barack Obama’s wife effectively portrayed herself as a parent and wife who relates to hard-working American families.

“Michelle definitely eased my mind,” said delegate Thurman Metcalf of Rogers. “She made me feel like she was one of us, a normal person, by her showing the love of her parents and the love for her kids and her husband. It would have been like us sitting in her room talking to her like a family member. I love her.”

Metcalf and others who are pledged to support Hillary Clinton said speeches like Michelle Obama’s help solidify their support for her husband. A refrain among the state’s Clinton delegates has been that they want to learn as much about Obama as possible this week.

“(Michelle Obama’s) life story is like my friends and my neighbors,” said state Rep. Kathy Webb of Little Rock.

A Barack Obama supporter from the outset, Pulaski County Clerk Pat O’Brien said Monday night’s marquee speech was right on target.

“I think Michelle Obama hit a home run last night and all she did was talk about who she is,” O’Brien said.

The Arkansas delegation to the Democratic National Convention has its busiest schedule of events of any day during the convention today in Denver.

After a early-morning breakfast where Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., addressed the group and previewed her 6 p.m. Central time convention speech, delegates boarded buses for downtown Denver. There they will participate in a luncheon and reception sponsored by Entergy Arkansas. Gov. Mike Beebe is the featured speaker.

After that, it’s on to Denver’s historic Union Station for a party sponsored by Union Pacific aboard vintage rail cars owned by the company.

Both the Beebe luncheon and the train station party are closed to the press.

A speech by former Arkansas First Lady Hillary Clinton highlights action on the convention floor tonight.

Then after the speech, it’s off to the official state delegation party at The Tavern, a trendy Denver nightclub.

Delegates who get any sleep at all will have to wake up by 7 a.m. Wednesday for their breakfast featuring Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., as the guest speaker.

As Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention kicks off, a lingering question remains unanswered: Just where are the Sebastian County Democrats who came to Denver?

No one from the county or Fort Smith, the state’s second-largest city, is part of the official delegation to Denver. However, county party chairman Lee Webb said earlier this month that “a couple” Democrats from the region were headed to the Mile High City for the festivities.

Webb refused to say who they were. Arkansas delegates haven’t seen or heard from any Sebastian County residents.

In honor of Biff Henderson of the Late Show with David Letterman, who was spotted last night at the Pepsi Center, here are the top 10 possible places these unnamed Sebastian Countians could be:

10. Behind bandanas posing as anarchist protesters.

9. With the Oklahoma delegation, since their across-the-state-line neighbors have a Democratic congressman.

8. At Invesco Field to beat the crowd for Barack Obama’s Thursday night acceptance speech.

7. Hiking from the Arkansas delegation hotel to the Pepsi Center. If they left Monday, they should finally get to downtown Denver about noon Wednesday.

6. Crashing parties.

5. An hour ahead of everybody else, having forgot to move their watches back an hour for Mountain Daylight Time.

4. At Denver Broncos training camp.

3. Wandering aimlessly as they navigate the security fortress constructed around the Pepsi Center.

2. Boycotting the convention, since they’re big Coca-Cola fans.

1. Using a convention trip as a ruse so they can take a vacation somewhere else.

Straight from the Democratic National Convention Committee press office’s news release on today’s convention schedule:

The Honorable Blanche Lambert Lincoln

US Senator, Arizona

Wonder when she moved?

The Arkansas senior senator (or at least she still was Monday) will take the convention stage at 6 p.m. Central tonight along with other women Democratic senators. The group of senators will discuss its election-year “Checklist for Change.” It’s the group’s effort to focus on issues important to everyday Americans.

Joining Lincoln, D-Ariz., rather, D-Ark., will be Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

If Arkansas Democrats want a photo of Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., when she speaks tonight at the party’s convention, they will need good zoom lenses on their cameras.

The state’s delegation is seated in a corner of the Pepsi Center’s lower level, about as far away from the podium as any other state’s group. Maine and Oklahoma are the only states behind them.

Prime space on the convention floor went to Barack Obama’s home state, Illinois, vice presidential pick Joe Biden’s state, Delaware, and Colorado, the host state.

Arkansans like Berta Seitz of Fayetteville fondly remember a time when they weren’t banished practically to the rafters. In 1992 and 1996, the state’s delegation was front and center as Bill Clinton accepted the party’s nomination.

“Oh, yeah, that was great!” Seitz said Monday.

Ironically, the state’s support of another Clinton may be why the delegation is seated far away from the stage and why the Arkansas hotel is 20 miles away from the Pepsi Center. But Democratic officials said the hotel and seating assignments were made long before Hillary Clinton won the state’s primary with 70 percent of the vote.

Perhaps another explanation is that Arkansas isn’t considered a key “battleground” state in the race for the White House. Republican John McCain has a significant lead over Obama in the state in recent polls.

For the record, your lowly blogger trades off with two other Stephens Media reporters the company’s one assigned seat situated behind and to the right of the stage. General admission seating for media is high in the balcony of the Pepsi Center.

Arkansas Democratic Party officials still have no word about whether there will be some sort of recognition of the late Bill Gwatney during the national convention.

Gwatney, the party’s state chairman, was slain in Democratic headquarters in Little Rock on Aug. 13.

Without knowing what, if anything, convention leaders will do to remember him, Arkansas delegates are wearing special lapel pins commemorating Gwatney. They are the “official” pins of the delegation. His wife, Rebecca, serves in his place as a superdelegate to the convention.

And in the “say it ain’t so” department, two Arkansans said the delegation was discouraged from mentioning Gwatney at Sunday’s reception/party with two other delegations — Hawaii and Delaware — at the hotel the three groups share. Hawaii and Delaware delegations did not want to “dampen the mood,” said one observer who attended.

“I sure hope that Lennox guy isn’t the only celebrity I see while I’m here.” Kent Walker, a North Little Rock attorney lamenting that so far he’s only met “Dave Lennox,” the spokesman for Lennox air conditioning and heating systems.  Other Arkansans in celebrity-filled Denver have seen or heard concerts by Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson and others.

Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Little Rock, won’t be at the Democratic convention in Denver this week. He’s staying in Little Rock to be with his wife, the Rev. Betsy Singleton, who is pregnant with triplets.
Snyder said by phone Monday morning that Singleton is not having complications, but he thought it would be best to stay with her. She isn’t supposed to be doing any heavy lifting, Snyder said.
The couple also has a 2-year-old son.
Singleton is more disappointed than Snyder about not making the trip, he said. Four years ago when Barack Obama gave the convention keynote speech, Singleton predicted he would be president. She was eager to see him accept the Democratic nomination, Snyder said.
“It would be better for her and our 2-year-old and both our anxieties if we stayed here,” Snyder said.
The congressman said he’s “pretty sure” the triplets are all boys, based on previous ultrasound pictures. The couple should know with certainity the sexes of the triplets after a Sept. 4 doctor’s appointment.
“We’ll start working on names on Sept. 4,” he said.
Two of the triplets will be identical, he said. The triplets are likely to be born around the first of the year.

The first time I was in Denver — back in the 1990s — the most dramatic event of the week was when my father yelled at me for not knowing which direction he should turn on a busy city street.
Fast forward a decade to another busy city street Sunday, when I unwittingly got caught up between police in full riot gear and scores of bandana-clad “anarchists” blocking a downtown street.
This time it wasn’t my dad yelling. It was a cop with a super-sized baton and a tear gas canister strapped to his belt. And unlike 10 years ago, this time I paid attention.
“Get back on the sidewalk! Move back!” He told me and a handful of other onlookers who decided to gawk for a while. More and more tourists pressed to see the scene in downtown Denver’s main shopping district, leaving police to worry more about controlling hordes of sweaty journalists and folks in bermuda shorts than stopping the demonstrators.
Security is high here as hundreds of police officers roam the streets alongside war protesters, anti-abortion demonstrators and others. A five block area around the convention site, the Pepsi Center, is effectively locked down.
On Sunday, eventually, police — many of them on horseback — ordered the demonstrators to disband. They did without incident.
But it didn’t happen until an hour after the protest had shut down commuter rail service.
When the commuter rail started up again, a local hotel worker who sat next to me on the the train cried because she hadn’t been able to get home quickly after work.
“I just worked a double and all I want to do is get home,” she said. Then disgustedly added, “I’m voting for John McCain because of this.”

Barring more demonstrations or logistical woes, I hope to post to this blog from time to time this week at the Democratic National Convention and next week when Republicans gather in St. Paul, Minn.
I’ll attend as many Arkansas delegation events that I can so that Arkansans can find out what their neighbors and elected officials are doing at this quadrennial party.

Arkansas delegates for Hillary Clinton outnumber those for Obama more than 4 to 1 here in the Mile High City, where the Democrats kick off their national convention today.
But it seems even the state’s Clinton fans are on an Obama high as the convention opens.
Reps. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, and Marion Berry, D-Gillett, had been lukewarm in their past endorsements of the presumptive nominee, but the pair put on a hard Obama sales pitch to Natural State delegates at a breakfast Monday morning.
After that, in a conference call with reporters back in Arkansas, Clinton delegates from the 1st Congressional District said they would “enthusiastically” support the Illinois senator.
They were equally effusive in praise for Joe Biden, Obama’s vice presidential choice.
“I have no qualms about supporting this ticket at all, it’s a great ticket,” said Gary Phillips of Blytheville.
Former State Treasurer Jimmie Lou Fisher, who served alongside then-Gov. Bill Clinton, also took a big gulp of the Obama Kool-Aid.
Fisher has been to every Democratic convention since 1976, she said.
“Our party is about unification,” she said. “We’re all under one tent. We’re going to leave this convention indivisible for Sen. Obama. It’s time we put this primary behind us.”
We’ll see as the week progresses whether the delegates who represent the rest of the 18 million Hillary Clinton voters feel the same way.