This week, Denver is hosting the 2008 Democratic National Convention. It’s just like NSO, only with more riot gear and Secret Service agents. The sidewalks are filled with happy, excited freshmen (“delegates,” “journalists,” “Finance Guests”), their laminated passes on neck lanyards. Many do, in fact, have Stanford connections.

In one sense, the convention is a reward for long months of hard work. Like, NSO, the streets are freshly swept. There are separate trash, recycling and compost bins on every corner, and nobody can figure them out. Google is a sponsor. At night, the delegates file into MemAud (“Pepsi Center”) to be convinced that the next four years of their lives — if they make the right choices — will be so much better than the last four. Or eight.

There’s also the presence of Stanford Dean of Freshmen and Democratic delegate (CD-14) Julie Lythcott-Haims ‘89, who led a crowd in cheers against an anti-gay-protestor outside the Denver Sheraton on Tuesday.

No, she hasn’t been yelling “OHH, EIGHT! OHH, BAMA!,” but before the convention Lythcott-Haims called the upcoming week “crazy, exciting, overwhelming . . . truly historic.”

While in Denver, she said she planned to help make the convention a “true lovefest” and share her experiences by blogging for the MOMocrats and the CD-14 blog (www.obama14.com).

“As Americans, it’s easy to take our right to vote for granted,” Lythcott-Haims said, “and historically the percentage of people who vote is quite low . . . [national politics play out at a local level], and I want to make civic engagement a priority for all of us.”

Still, Lythcott-Haims wanted to “draw appropriate lines” between her work for Stanford and the Obama campaign, and she noted that Stanford will take precedence during election week in November. Lythcott-Haims, who was born in Nigeria, will be traveling in Africa that week with a consortium of universities, to make sure “talented kids on the continent of Africa know about schools like Stanford.”

The week after, she will be in Kenya, where Obama still has family.

“I think the Kenyans think of him as one of theirs, and have such pride,” she said. “I think they’ll be as ecstatic as we are.”

Obama supporters here are beyond ecstatic, and not just because Obama became the first African-American major party nominee yesterday evening. There are over 350 official parties being thrown by Democratic supporters (and, since this is 2008 and transparency is the buzzword, you can find them all at the Sunlight Foundation’s “Party Time” Web site at www.politicalpartytime.com).

One of those supporters, Meena Harris ‘06, is here with her aunt Kamala Harris, San Francisco district attorney and an Obama delegate. Meena is passionate about voting rights (“the process itself is just discouraging,” as contrasted with Europe’s universal registration system, Harris said) and social justice issues. She said that her work with the Obama campaign, however, restored her faith in the process.

“For the first time, people were just as enthusiastic as I was, instead of ‘Oh, Meena, going to these political events’ . . . you meet all these people who’ve spent countless money and time” working for Obama, Harris said. “You form these incredible bonds.”

As an employee at Facebook since 2006, Harris watched Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes leave in February 2007 to help lead Obama’s Internet strategy. And Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, though “very careful” to keep Facebook non-partisan, is a “big fan” of Obama, Harris said.

While Obama appears to have a lock on the under-29 demographic, he has older Silicon Valley fans here in Denver as well. John Roos ‘77, is staying at the same hotel as Obama and vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, the downtown Westin. As California finance co-chair and CEO of the powerhouse law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Roos has gathered over $500,000 for the Obama campaign, according to opensecrets.org.

Roos compared Obama to “a lot of the young CEOs I work with,” with “the vision, incredible intelligence and judgment.” He believes Obama has already made the transition to successful CEO in the course of managing what is now a $400 million campaign.

“I’ve never seen a campaign that has put together such a thoughtful plan, sticking to a game plan, making adjustments,” Roos said.

Aside from its well-managed finances, Roos said he supports Obama’s foreign policy in light of America’s status internationally.

“I do some travel overseas, and I’ve never seen our reputation poorer,” he said. “I believe the day [Obama] is elected president, America’s back . . . people want to believe in America, in its leadership, and we haven’t had that.”

There aren’t many people in Denver right now who would disagree with Roos; as Lythcott-Haims predicted, it’s mostly one big lovefest.

Perhaps Tamra Del Molle ‘90, a convention volunteer who said she was “robbed of [her] mind when Bush won a second term,” made an even better comparison when she called the convention “the most enormous wedding you could imagine.”

And watching the speeches each night, one could certainly conclude that the Democratic Party — having fought its way down the primary aisle — is desperately hoping to live happily ever after. At least until the Class of 2016 comes along.