There's no TGIF when work starts on Saturday. And I'm glad.

Fullest. Day. Ever. Until tomorrow, that is, when I start my New York Post fieldwork.

By 8 p.m., I’d grown so slaphappy, I was running barefoot through the streets of Denver like a drunken madwoman, minus the alcohol. This sleep deprivation is of a particularly insidious variety. One minute, you’re watching Howard Dean deliver a killer speech. The next thing you know, you’re spinning around in circles on the sidewalk and babbling incoherently about how Obama better not choose a VP with the last name “Kaine” because the ticket becomes “ObaMcCain.”

I wish I could explain the spins and babbles, but I can’t. I can, however, explain the bare feet. Let’s just say the new shoes didn’t cooperate with multiple miles of tromping around downtown. (Squeamish readers: Skip the rest of this paragraph.) My feet are a mangled mess of blisters and raw skin, and the back third of my left shoe is completely stained inside. I’ll give you one guess what color the stain is.

Fortunately(?), it looks like I wasn’t the only Kansas City yahoo acting like a fool today. According to the Los Angeles Time’s political blog (and my mom), it was KC’s own Michael Mahoney of KMBC 9 News who “broke” the story that Evan Bayh of Indiana was Obama’s VP pick. Apparently, a plant in Kansas churned out a bunch of Obama-Bayh stickers. Now, the New York Times says Bayh’s been informed he’s not the guy. Oops.

Anyway, today was absolutely jam-packed with speakers and events. We got a rather anti-climactic tour of the Pepsi Center that lasted about five minutes, then and spent several hours perusing the ever-expanding convention kitsch booths downtown. I also found my fieldwork outlet’s press pavilion. It’s right next to the protester’s zone, which is, for lack of a more sophisticated phrase, freaking awesome.

Colorado’s Governor, Bill Ritter, came to speak to us, as did DNC Chair Howard Dean. We also heard from a C-Span panel, which was so collectively informative and witty, I may never watch any other cable news network again. (More on the C-Span crew later.)

I’m quickly learning that if you’re looking for insightful speeches that aren’t laden with sound bytes and catch phrases you’ve read a million times in partisan press releases, big-name speakers won’t deliver much.

It’s the behind-the-scenes staffers and smaller-time politicians who deliver the real pearls of unconventional wisdom. Granted, common sense could probably tell you that, but it’s been interesting to see the trend first-hand.

Here’s what I mean…

Governor Dean — who was about 45 minutes late, presumably because he was running spin control on the whole Bayh thing — delivered a spectacular speech. He’s a passionate speaker, and it’s easy to see how he inspired Iowans to campaign and caucus for him so vigorously in 2004. He has a star quality about him, a mix of charm, likeability, smooth attitude and just the right amount of roughness around the edges. When he walked into our room at the convention center, students were eerily silent, swarming to shake his hand like some kind of zombie cult, as a friend pointed out. All that was missing were creepy “Deeeeeaaaaannnnn, Deaaaaaannnnnnnnnn” groans. And maybe some brain-eating, but I doubt Dean would associate himself with such nonsense. Wouldn’t look too good for the party.

Dean’s speech, an ode of sorts to my generation of voters, was invigorating…but I don’t think he had a single thing to say that I hadn’t heard at least once this week and at least a half-dozen times over the last few months and years.

Governor Ritter, on the other hand, spoke eloquently on a whole gambit of brand new topics and delved deeper into concepts over which other speakers merely glossed. Not to suggest a man who governs 5 million people is a small-time politician, of course, but he’s able to zoom in on the issues in a way party bigwigs simply can’t.

Ritter put the Mountain West into context, explaining why and how Colorado and neighboring states have managed to elect Democratic governors, bucking a longstanding Republican trend in the region. (For the most part, rather extreme Republican candidates have been pitted against moderate Democrats, allowing governors from the minority party to take office in spite of vast Republican majorities in many of the states’ legislatures.)

Ritter’s most substantive words, though, addressed what Barack Obama needs to do to add Colorado to the list of blue states come November. To win over Colorado’s independent voters — the suburban soccer moms, as Ritter called them — Obama must talk, in detail, about America’s energy future and how that future is going to create jobs. Other crucial issues include the economy and education. If Obama can authentically speak to these common concerns among Colorado’s independent voters, he’ll win the state’s critical 9 electoral votes.

Speaking of authentically addressing issues, I’ll move on to the C-Span panel. These speakers touched on far too many issues to ever encapsulate in one blog, so I’ll key in on a handful of big issues and revealing remarks, and the too-good-to-be-true sound bytes the panelists offered about them.

“Infuriate the news media? Not a good idea!” — Ellen Ratner, Talk Radio News.

When I heard about Obama moving his acceptance speech to Invesco, it sounded like the epitome of a great idea. He’s implicitly recalling the ’60 election — the last time a candidate (Kennedy) addressed a large stadium of supporters. Ratner pointed out that Thursday marks the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington, and addressing a massive stadium full of supporters will provide an televised image of something much bigger than a candidate. For Obama, this Invesco gathering could represent common cause, a mass movement, and a symbol of the progress this nation has made since Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of his dream…and the progress we’ve yet to make.

Here’s what I’d never have thought about, had our panelists not shed some light on how the media aspects of the Invesco move. First, the Invesco, quite frankly, probably isn’t going to play as well on camera as the more-intimate Pepsi Center. Steve Sculley, C-Span’s executive producer, said he wasn’t convinced the stadium will play well on TV.

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, Ratner highlighted the fact that the move is costing media outlets thousands of dollars and thousands of headaches…not a good thing for Obama, since it’s the media upon whom parties ultimately rely to determine the success of the convention.

“There is a lot of interest in the horse race, and I’ll tell you why: because it’s easy to cover” — Steve Scully, Executive Producer and Political Editor for C-Span

I’m not going to lie. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and watched C-Span, probably because CNN and MSNBC are sandwiched between the other channels I watch casually, far away from C-Span, which dwells in the teeny-tiny-numbered channels on my cable plan. After today, though, I think I’m making the move.

I typically love CNN, but I was disappointed when the network gave more coverage John Edwards’ affair the day the Russia-Georgia conflict erupted. I can’t tolerate Lou Dobbs and his asinine xenophobia, and I’m getting what I'll call "gaffe fatigue." I've spent a little too much time watching minute-by-minute coverage of candidate slipups that, for the average voter, mean absolutely nothing.

Maybe a lot of voters don’t care about candidates’ actual plans of actions as much as they care about whether Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, but after hearing how fired up the panelists got today over one student’s mere suggestion that none of news media covers substantive issues when it comes to campaigns, I’m inspired to head over to C-Span. Right now, I understand politics far better than policy, and that’s probably because I watch nothing but news that covers political minutiae punctuated by punditry instead of news addressing policies and the way Washington actually works. Hello, C-Span. I’m your newest convert.

Okay. I simply can’t write anything else. There’s so much to say, but my brain is shutting down as we speak. It’s time for bed.