Disabled Politico is LIVE here in dreary and humid St. Paul. One of us is at the beautiful St. Paul public library, right next to the Xcel Energy Center, and the other is at the Ron Paul Rally in Minneapolis at the Target Center. It should be an exciting night. Later this evening (after the main programmes) we will likely head out to see Gov. Huckabee's band play at a local club. That should be very interesting.
So far today we tried (unsuccessfully) to attend a health care roundtable sponsored by Cerner. We were denied entry. After that we went to a Diabetes luncheon put on by Eli Lilly. We were admitted there and say part of a film being released by the Creative Coalition in conjunction with Lilly about the impact diabetes is having in the 3rd world. Very interesting stuff. Eli Lilly's CEO, Joh Lechleiter, opened by saying that diabetes is the leading cause of blindness and amputation. He also said that there are 24 million people in the US with diabetes and that that number has grown by 14% in the last two years. Ironically enough, each seat at the luncheon was accompanied by a rich slice of chocolate fudge cake (seriously).
Now that my laptop is charged I'll be heading into the Xcel Center to take in the night's events. The press seating area doesn't have internet access, I'll have to move to the press filing area for that, so updates won't be real time (especially since the battery on my iPhone is almost capput). Tonight's lineup is as follows:
- President George W. Bush (via satellite)
- First Lady Laura Bush
- U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.)
- Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.)
- U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio)
- U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.)
- U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.)
- Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, Chairman of the Republican National Committee
- Jo
Ann Davidson, Co-Chairman of the Republican National Committee and
Chairman of the 2008 Republican National Convention Committee on
Arrangements
