A Text From History

Later tonight, Senator Barack Obama will accept the Democratic party’s presidential nomination at Invesco Field. There will be 75,000 people watching and listening. And I will be one of them.

I will have to arrive about five hours before the scheduled start of tonight’s program — and I will likely spend most of my time getting through security, talking to my fellow delegates, talking to my office back in St. Louis, and trying to find a place out of a sun that it about a mile closer to the top of my head than a St. Louis sun ever is.

There is plenty of speculation about the tone and content of tonight’s speech. I expect Sen. Obama to lay out — clearly and eloquently — the important choices American voters face in this election. I am looking forward to hearing him.

I know that many of you will be watching tonight’s speech. If any of the many television cameras (including a Super Bowl-type skycam) catches me on screen, you will probably see me texting messages to my son, Francis, who is an ardent Obama supporter — and who very much wanted to be here. A text from this historic moment is the best I could do for him.