Men's Vogue Daily Blog: Magazine: mensvogue.com

(Inside the DNC convention center on the night of Biden's speech)

It's the third day of the Democratic National Convention and Obama's arrival seems to have ratcheted up the spring-break-for-politicos energy in downtown Denver. It's a party and everyone's here, even if they weren't invited. Police are roaming the streets in riot gear, sinister-looking automatic weapons in hand. And at hotels like the Westin (where Obama's staying), the Brown Palace, and the Ritz, notable dems and the people who love them are schmoozing in force.

"Hey it's that renewable energy guy!" says a bearded man with a broken leg as he greets Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (who spoke before Hillary on Tuesday) outside the Ritz. Kanye West's Escalade has just pulled up. And Princeton scholar Cornel West is being introduced by his bodyguard to "Brother Moby." The two of them engage in an affable chat as we wait for a car to take us to lunch with Moby's friend, actress Lisa Edelstein (Hugh Laurie's boss on the show House) and my wife, Laura Dawn, the creative director of MoveOn.org. Lisa's spent the morning representing for an anti-torture lobbying group. "I actually came in place of Deborah Winger, who got sick and couldn't make it," she explains. "And since we kind of look alike, everyone wanted me to give them her autograph."

After a vegan lunch at WaterCourse foods (which has become a bit of a young-lefty convention dining nexus) we head to the Brown Palace for an RFK memorial hosted by the Kennedys. The room is packed with blue-blazer types. Ethel Kennedy and her grandkids are on a receiving line thanking guests for spending $5,000 a pop to stand around in a crowded hotel function room eating red, white and blue canapés. We bump into Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power, who introduces us to her brand new husband, lawyer Cass Sunstein, whom she met while working for the Obama campaign (which she had to leave after being scandalized for calling Hillary Clinton a "monster" during the height of her Obama smearfest). "If I hadn't completely destroyed my nascent political career," she jokes, "I probably never would've ended up getting married to Cass. So in a way, I'm happy the way things worked out." I have a feeling Samantha's career will turn out ok. She's a pretty smart gal.

Our next stop is the Westin, to catch the VIP shuttle to see Bill Clinton and Joe Biden speak at the convention center. Our SUV-mates turn out to be actress Jessica Alba and her entourage (including husband Cash Warren). "So what do we think of Biden?" asks Alba to one of her handlers. "I think we're pretty psyched about him," the handler replies. The conversation quickly turns away from politics to what we discover is our shared passion: Scrabble. "It is totally unfair that people who own the official Scrabble dictionary memorize all those two letter words," says Alba. And I agree.

After going through two separate security checkpoints, we arrive at the convention center and are ushered to "VIP boxes." I can only imagine Alba's box is slightly more glamorous than the one we've been escorted to. It's owned by the company Waste Management and offers a distant, partial view of the back of Bill Clinton's head. Along with Broadway star Alan Cumming, actor/director Tony Goldwyn, and other guests of the Waste Management box, we slowly realize that this is probably as good as it's gonna get. It is very cool to see all the enthusiastic delegates waving their American flags in the stadium. But as for actually watching the speakers, the TV on the back wall turns out to be a better bet.

Our last stop of the night is a party for the Manifest Hope Gallery. Sponsored by MoveOn and graphic artist Shep Fairey (who created the ubiquitous Obama "Hope" logo), this turns out to be, without a doubt the hippest event of the DNC. Located in an industrial building on the outskirts of downtown, the temporary gallery's filled with excellent, cutting edge, Obama-inspired artwork, all for sale to support the democratic cause.

After a bangin' old school disco DJ set by Fairey, comedian Sarah Silverman takes the stage for some signature teetering-on-the-edge-of-total-wrongness political comedy. "McCain doesn't even know the difference between Sunni and Shiite," she says. "His foreign policy is, 'if it's brown, flush it down.'"

Next up are indie rock darlings Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley), actress/singer Zooey Deschanel, who play a sweet set of old school, Laurel Canyon '69-style folk music with a couple of their friends. Their performance shows moments of sweet brilliance, but it's clear that the people at this party were a little happier drinking fair-trade wine and dancing for democracy.

Mellow folk quickly gives way to recordings of Obama speech-giving over groovy hip hop beats, courtesy of DJ Z-Trip (Apparently, if the whole president thing doesn't work out, Obama may have a solid future in dance music). By 2 a.m. the celebration shows no signs of abating. As MoveOn organizers negotiate Charlize Theron and her husband's arrival, we take a hit of supplemental oxygen and grab a cab back to the hotel. After a long night of libertine activism I am sure of one thing: If the democratic party was anything like the Manifest Hope party, Obama would have this thing in the bag for sure. --DARON MURPHY