Howard Dean

Check back next week to view my Convention Sketchpads from the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

The fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention will be called to order at 5:00 PM EST on Thursday, with a theme of "Change You Can Believe In."

The final day's events will take place at INVESCO Field at Mile High, where over 70,000 people are expected to attend.

Featured speakers will include Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D), former Vermont Gov. and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean (D), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), U.S. Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D), former Vice President Al Gore (D) and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D).

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Democratic presidential nominee, is scheduled to address the convention at 10 p.m. EST.

The full schedule is below.

DENVER -- As mentioned earlier, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and DNC Chair Howard Dean addressed the Washington delegation this morning along with Washington Democratic Chair Dwight Pelz and state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle), but the star power did not stop there.

Phil Angelides speaks with Rep. Jay InsleeAlso speaking in attendence was Phil Angelides of the Apollo Alliance, a consortium of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders dedicated to creating a clean energy economy in America.  Angelides, the 2006 Democratic nominee for governor of California, spoke highly of Inslee's progress in Congress on behalf of energy projects, and was sure to remind the room that his youngest daughter was currently attending the University of Washington.

DENVER -- When Howard Dean dropped in on the Washington delegation this morning, it made the highlight reel for at least two local convention-goers. Shanna Sawtzki and Jen Hauseman, both Obama delegates from Seattle, pointed to Dean's visit as the best thing that had happened to them so far in their still fledgling trip to the Mile High City.

Jen Hauseman shows off her Obama buttonIt is Sawatzki's second convention as a visitor, her husband was a Dean delegate in Boston in 2004, and her first as a delegate herself. Hauseman, who has been a strong grassroots supporter for Obama this season by making more than 50,000 buttons and traveling to swing states like Pennsylvania to hand them out, has never been to a national convention before.

"When Howard Dean showed up, that was thrilling," Hauseman said. "We liked how he applied his 50-state strategy to Washington."

DENVER - The biggest reaction from Washington's delegate breakfast today came, hands down, from the surprise arrival of Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, the former Vermont Governor.

Dean gave a very Washington-centric address as he touched on the party's emphasis to regain the votes of rural America, which he said had been destroyed by eight years of Republican policies.

He said that Washington Democrats needed "to begin to build [their] base in rural Washington. You have an immediate dividend. Every extra vote you get out in Eastern Washington is a vote for Chris Gregoire. It is a long term benefit as well. These people haven't voted for a Democrat in a long time. As soon as you get these folks to think about voting for a Democrat again, they start t consider voting for state legislature candidates. That is how you turn the country blue.

"We are going to turn Eastern Washington blue."

Every election year, professional speculators say that young people will vote this time. Every year they don’t. Capturing the youth vote has become the quixotic dream of all politicians.