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By Byron LaMasters

I'm back home in Dallas from the Democratic convention. I'll have lots of posts over the next few days wrapping things up. I still have lots of material from interviews, etc. that I would like to post, along with many pictures. Today, I've been catching up with laundry and watching convention videos from the C-SPAN archives to get another perspective of them. The convention is an incredible experience. I got around 4-6 hours a night, so I slept for about 14 hours last night catching up. The trip was so fast-paced. I think I would have needed 100 hours a day to sift through all of the news and information that I needed to cover the convention as well as I would have liked. In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently. I wanted to go to some state delegation events, but was unable to. The main state delegation events were morning breakfasts at 8 AM. That would have required waking up at 6 AM to get to the subway station at 7 AM in order to find my way to an 8 AM event. Considering that I didn't get to sleep until 3 AM at the earliest nights, going to delegation breakfasts was not a realistic plan if I wanted to maintain my sanity throughout the week.

I'd like to especially thank the DNCC for giving us the opportunity. They were very helpful, and when a lot of us had a hard time getting an wireless connection on Monday night, they were up there with two teams of technicians on Tuesday afternoon. The blogger breakfast went great. The only conflict of the week between the bloggers and the DNCC was due to Matt Stoller's "Not sold on Obama" post on his personal webpage after the blogger breakfast. And to be honest, I'm a huge fan of Obama, but his comments at the blogger breakfast were pretty generic. I was mostly focused on taking pictures of the guy, so I didn't hear everything, but I think Obama felt obligated to just stop by personally thank the bloggers who had been following his candidacy much longer than most Americans. He certainly got a reception Tuesday night. His was the best speech of the convention along with Bill Clinton. They both get an A+. I'd disagree with Jim - that Kerry's acceptance speech was the best I've ever seen. It was a damn good speech, but not the best ever. John Kerry simply isn't a great speaker. But he rose to the challenge and captured the moment. I give him a solid A.

Speaking of Obama, check out his blog. It just got bombarded with visitors on Tuesday night. According to Atrios - Obama's webpage was getting 18,000 hits a minute during the speech.

As for Kerry. He keeps breaking records. As he did earlier in the year, John Kerry broke online fundraising records in two consecutive days. The U.S Newswire reports:

The highly successful 2004 Democratic National Convention ensured Kerry and Edwards started this tour with tremendous momentum at their backs. The four-day showcase of the Kerry- Edwards plan to make America stronger at home and respected in the world energized Americans everywhere.

On Wednesday, the campaign shattered its previous online fundraising record, raising over $3.3 million dollars in one day, only to crush it on Thursday with a total of $5.6 million raised - bringing its two-day total to $8.9 million. At times during Kerry's speech, johnkerry.com received over 5,000 hits per second.

The campaign also succeeded in energizing people in states across the map. On Thursday night, more than 200,000 Americans gathered with friends and fellow supporters at over 5,000 house parties to watch Kerry accept the nomination.

Most importantly, millions of Americans over the last four days learned about the lives of service and strength Kerry and Edwards have lived, about their experience standing up for middle-class values and their plan for America's future.

Wow! Not only that, but Kerry / Edwards are on the road drawing tens of thousands of people in mid-sized conservative-leaning cities in Pennsylvania:

10,000 in Greensburg, PA.

20,000 in Harrisburg, PA.

17,000 in Scranton, PA.

Wow. Wow. Wow.