DENVER — Forget the niceties of the first night.
The speeches on the Pepsi Center floor were acerbic on the second and third days of the Democratic National Convention. Democrats relentlessly criticized Arizona Sen. John McCain, and linked him over and over to President Bush.
The most common phrases coming from the podium were “we cannot afford more of the same” and “four more months.”
Gov. Janet Napolitano went hard after McCain.
She told the thousands gathered inside the Pepsi Center that she wants one “tradition” in her home state to continue: the trend of Arizona politicians losing in presidential elections.
“There’s a pattern here. Barry Goldwater ran for president and he lost. Mo Udall ran for president. He lost. Bruce Babbitt ran for president. And he lost,” Napolitano told the crowd. “Speaking for myself, and for at least this coming election, this is one Arizona tradition I’d like to see continue.”
And she was just warming up. Napolitano said she wanted to say “something positive” about McCain, and it went like this:
“When I heard him say the economy is not an issue he understands as well as he should, my problem was solved,” Napolitano said. “Because I can say to you tonight, positively, that John McCain is right. He doesn’t understand the economy as well as he should. And he doesn’t understand how the policies he has supported and wants to perpetuate have so terribly misfired.”
Other speakers talked about McCain’s voting record and his stand on issues — on energy, health care, etc. — to emphasize how they have been a part of Bush’s “failed policies” and to highlight their difference from Obama’s.
The speeches were a departure from the opening night of the convention, when the Democrats highlighted Ted Kennedy’s life and listened to Michelle Obama talk about her family, striking a positive note and refraining from going after McCain.
There was a pattern in the speeches. It was about the Obama family on the first night. The second night focused on more immediate concerns at home — the economy, health care, solar energy. The third night sought to portray Obama as the man who would make the right foreign policy and national security decisions.
Except on the first day, the speeches portrayed McCain as wedded to the past and too closely tied to Bush.
Napolitano said her work as chairwoman of the party’s platform drafting committee provided an opportunity to listen to Americans tell her how badly “Bush-McCain’s” economic policies have failed.
She listed what Obama would do: provide a tax rebate for middle-income taxpayers while exempting lower-income seniors from paying income tax; give $4,000 in tax credits to students who promise to give back through community service; invest in a clean energy economy and diminish America’s reliance on foreign oil.
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner laid out the argument for an Obama presidency by framing the race for the White House as a choice between the future and the past.
“The race for the future is on,” Warner said in his keynote speech before thousands of delegates inside the Pepsi Center in Denver on Aug. 26.
“It won’t be won with yesterday’s ideas and yesterday’s divisions. And it won’t be won with a president who is stuck in the past,” he said. “We need a president who understands the world today, the future we seek and the change we need.”
Like the speakers before him, Warner sought to tie McCain to Bush, a harbinger of how the Democrats and Obama’s camp will run their campaign in the months running up to November.
“John McCain,” Warner said, “promises more of the same — a plan that would explode the deficit that will be passed on to our kids. No real strategy to invest in our crumbling infrastructure. And he would continue spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.”
Warner said everyone in America should get a fair shot at success.
“Barack Obama understands this, because he’s lived it,” he said. “And Barack Obama is running to restore that fair shot for every American.”
On Aug. 27, the third night of their convention, Democrats lined up speakers to vouch for Barack Obama’s ability to make the right national security and foreign policy decisions.
“No president can be expected to solve every problem, but Senator Obama has already shown that he has the toughness and good judgment needed to confront our enemies without alienating friends,” said Madeleine Albright, who served as U.S. secretary of state under President Clinton.
Former presidential candidate John Kerry said Bush, with McCain “at his side, promised to spread freedom but delivered the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Joe Biden, the vice presidential nominee, said McCain is his friend.
“But I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country,” he said in his prepared statement.
He added: “And when he says he will continue to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq when Iraq is sitting on a surplus of nearly $80 billion, that’s not change; that’s more of the same.”
The final night of the convention broke from the ordinary, as an estimated 75,000 people packed into Invesco Field at Mile High to hear Obama’s acceptance speech.
It was the first time in recent history that a convention’s main event was open to the public, Democrats said. And the outreach to regular Americans didn’t end there; Obama’s campaign continued to use modern technology such as text messaging to try new things to engage voters.
Throughout the final evening, leading up to Obama’s speech, people from across the United States streamed text messages in support of Obama across the big screens at Invesco.
“I support Obama because he will follow through on his promises as president,” according to one of the messages on the screen sent by a resident of Ohio.
To point out the uniqueness of the Obama campaign, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat, said people were waiting outside for four hours or more to get inside. Lines began forming outside Invesco by early afternoon, and the field was packed just before Obama was to address the crowd.
Among those waiting eagerly was John Paul Bombe, a 23-year-old from Chicago, who said he likes Obama because “he’s in this election for the right reason — to get our country back on track instead of making him and his cronies rich.”
 

For a preview of the Republican National Convention and complete coverage of the Democratic National Convention, visit http://elections.azcapitoltimes.com/.  

  -Dolan Media writer Amy Gillentine contributed to this report.