Democratic National Convention

Far from center stage, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spent the first day of the Democratic National Convention straining to speak over clattering dishes as he addressed a breakfast meeting Monday of the Florida delegation. On the second day, Villaraigosa remained on the sidelines, as early Barack Obama supporters like Federico Pena, the former mayor of Denver, and Rep. Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles took the stage.

This week's Democratic convention sought to relaunch Barack Obama's presidential campaign by doing three things: Healing the party's internal rift, showing voters who Obama is, and spelling out more clearly what he would do as president, especially on the economy. But at the halfway point, the convention still seemed, at best, to have accomplished Step 1.

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night with a scathing assessment of John McCain and a blunt indictment of the Bush administration, promising to repair "the broken politics of Washington" and preside over a more prosperous and equitable America. Speaking to a rapturous audience of more than 84,000 packed into a football stadium, Obama delivered a 44-minute address that was more sharply worded than his usual lyrical prose.

It is not Al Gore's style to wallow in what happened in the 2000 election -- at least in public. After all, winning the Nobel Peace Prize speaks to moving on. But how could he resist referencing his popular-vote-win-electoral-college-loss, especially when Democratic Party unity is not a given? And so he did, as he appeared Thursday at Denver's Invesco Field as a warm-up act for Barack Obama.

The first wave of trials for protesters arrested during the Democratic National Convention has resulted in a stream of acquittals in what the defendants are calling an embarrassment to Denver and proof that prosecutors ought to drop the rest of the cases. In trials for the first nine of 106 people arrested during the convention, all but two defendants have won acquittals on charges that they participated in anarchist demonstrations on the opening night of the convention.

Democratic convention protests: In an article in Sunday's Section A about trials in Denver for protesters arrested during the Democratic National Convention, the headline said there had been nine trials. There have been four trials involving nine people.

Financial giants and other large firms now being bailed out by the government spent millions underwriting the Democratic and Republican conventions last summer, just weeks before coming to Washington seeking multibillion-dollar handouts. The big donors included AIG, Ford Motor Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Freddie Mac.

The Democratic National Committee on Thursday announced it would hold its 2008 convention in Denver to showcase the party's expansion into the once reliably Republican terrain of the Rocky Mountain West. DNC Chairman Howard Dean said that symbolism pushed Denver's bid ahead of its competition, perennial convention candidate New York. "It's fitting that the next president of the United States will be nominated in Denver," Dean said in a conference call.

The Democratic National Committee voted Saturday to strip Florida of all its presidential convention delegates, threatening to leave the state without a voice in choosing the party's 2008 nominee, unless it delays the date of its primary election. The ultimatum marks party leaders' most drastic attempt yet to impose order among states that have been trying to elbow their balloting closer to the front of the election cycle. Three months ago, Florida controversially set its primary for Jan. 29.