How Many Cops Does it Take to Usher a Crowd?

How is it that nearly 80,000 Broncos fans can enter Mile High Stadium just moment before kick off and face a line of no longer than 15 minutes, but when Sen. Barack Obama is in town it takes upwards of three hours or more to enter?

Now I get that security needs to be a little higher when a presidential candidate is the center of attention, but the people showing up around 4:30 to see Barack’s historic acceptance speech around were welcomed to a line that started in Lot F, and didn’t move once inch for more than an hour until police intervened.

“Jake, I’m not in yet,” state Sen. Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, texted me. “The line is so long, I may watch from a bar.”

Shaffer stuck it out—it took him four hours to get in. “It was worth it,” he told me today.

I had to talk my girlfriend into staying in line, too. She arrived at the stadium at 4:30 and got into the Invesco concourse at 6:55—missing great speeches by Al Gore and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, not to mention a special performance by Stevie Wonder.

That’s not the inclusive convention finale organizers had hoped for.