Word: denver
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...needs a director. Think of the Oscars, the Beijing Olympics, the Super Bowl: in each case there was a guy, or girl, timing the fireworks, cueing the music, lining up the athletes or yanking starlets' heads out of toilets for their big moment. For the Democratic National Convention in Denver that guy is Matt Nugen, an unlikely, happy-go-lucky 36-year-old who is responsible for making Barack Obama's coronation go off without a hitch...
...think any one can prepare for this role," says Nugen, who has foregone a personal life in favor of 16-hour works days since he was dispatched to Denver in June soon after Obama cinched the nomination. "It's a lot of long hours, seven days a week, but, you know what? You're so busy you don't realize how crazy it is and it's just getting crazier, so..." and here Nugen trails off and there's a long pause as if he's counting down the list of all the things he has to get done...
...assignment was a daunting one for Nugen, who signed on to Obama's campaign in February 2007 as political director - the guy in charge of schmoozing and cajoling the superdelegates to endorse the Illinois senator. By the time Nugen arrived in Denver the convention was already severely behind schedule - a symptom of a primary season no one expected to last until June - and was more than $10 million underfunded. Soon after, word came down that he would not only need to build the stage and venue at the Pepsi Center but he'd need to build a second stage - without...
...business administration at the University of Missouri in his hometown of St. Louis. He puts a lot stock in team building. Despite the compressed schedule, on the first Saturday of July he took his top nine aides white water rafting on the lower Eagle River in the mountains above Denver. "It was fun watching teammates getting tossed into the river, especially after they bragged how great they would be," says Nugen, who was "white knuckled" but stayed on the boat, earning bragging rights for the next two months...
...contributors in his online database, Obama is perhaps a bigger force now than any of these. McCain may perceive Obama's enormous celebrity as a weakness - workhorse vs. show horse - but celebrity has its benefits. Obama will accept the nomination in front of a crowd of 76,000 in Denver's professional-football stadium, and the price of a free ticket is to register as a campaign volunteer...