The demand for Minneapolis computer rentals and short-term computer hardware leasing arrangements will spike at summer’s end when the Republican Party convenes in Minneapolis-Saint Paul for the 2008 Republican National Convention. The National Journal’s Congress Daily reports that “the political counterpart of Moore’s law” will be operative both in the Twin Cities and in Denver, where the Democratic Party will hold its National Convention at the end of August. “With each quadrennial national political convention,” the National Journal notes, “the use of information technology seems to grow exponentially.”

By way of example, in 2004 only 12 online bloggers received press credentials to cover the RNC that was held in New York City. The RNC has announced that it will credential over ten times that figure to blog on the RNC that will be held at Saint Paul’s Xcel Energy Centre, September 1st to 4th. Matt Burns, the RNC’s director of communications, has estimated that between 175 and 200 independent bloggers will be credentialed for this year’s convention.

The RNC’s Committee on Arrangements (COA) is expecting more than 45,000 delegates, alternate delegates, party officials, volunteers, media members and convention guests to show up for the 2008 gathering of the G.O.P. faithful. The COA has contracted with more than 100 hotels for accommodation and there are nearly 50 venues spread out amongst Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Bloomington where separate events will be held as adjuncts to the main convention.

With the number of venues putting on events and the vastly greater number of mainstream and independent journalist covering those events, demand for computer equipment and technical support to bring off what promises to be an intensely high-wired convention week will be prodigious. At the macro level, blue chip technology providers like Microsoft, which is the RNC’s official technology provider, Qwest Communications and Google, the RNC’s official innovation provider, have already begun preparations in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. At the micro level, computer rental and rental equipment providers are ramping up to fill the demand for the computer hardware, peripherals and A/V equipment that will be required at the auxiliary venues and events away from the main convention site.

The demand for bandwidth is likely to be atrocious. The COA has arranged for USTREAM.TV to stream live coverage of the RNC from the convention site and for ShadowTV to provide continuous live and archival coverage of the convention proceedings from the Xcel Center. Arrangements are also being made to stream live coverage of the convention in Spanish as well as English.

Qwest, the RNC’s official telecom provider, is putting down over 100 miles of fiber optics and copper cable to provide a gigabyte of bandwidth just to facilitate the demand for coverage of proceedings from inside the convention, while outside Verizon Wireless is anticipating a 150% increase in data transmissions over its broadband network during the convention.

Just as the demand for products and services from hotel rooms to caterers to rental cars will peak during convention week, so too will demand for the computer hardware and technical support to set up, maintain and troubleshoot the digital infrastructure underlying the convention. National firms specializing in computer rental, equipment rentals and computer support are now beginning to shift resources and prepare their logistics to handle the coming peak in demand. Preparations are being made to transfer equipment, resources and personnel from other regional centers to the Twin Cities in order to handle the demand for Minneapolis computer rentals that will be necessary to host the wide array of convention events and to bring live coverage of the G.O.P.’s festivities to the world.

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For more information on Minneapolis computer rentals visit http://www.VernonComputerSource.com or call 1-800-827-0352 to let us help you determine your computer rental needs.

As things get more and more nasty for Obama and Hillary, many of the super delegates are on the fence and getting a bit edgy. The super delegate debate is growing more and more intense even though the Democratic Convention is still five months away. How many tens of thouands of dollars will be needed to determine a winner and will there even be one before June? How much damage will have been done to their two candidates by then?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had some things to say over the weekend about the situation. Pelosi said it would be damaging to the Democratic party for its leaders to buck the will of national convention delegates picked in primaries and caucuses and more specifically, “If the votes of the super delegates overturn what’s happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party.”

That’s an understatement!

The California Democrat did not mention either Obama or his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, by name. But her remarks seemed to suggest she was prepared to cast her ballot at the convention in favor of the candidate who emerges from the primary season with the most pledged delegates. And, currently, Obama leads Clinton by 142 pledged delegates — those delegates picked in nomination contests to date, in The Associated Press’ count.

Barring an unlikely string of landslide victories by the former first lady in the remaining states, he will end the primary season with a delegate lead, but short of the 2025 needed to win the nomination. Of course if there are more stories like the sermons that surfaced on Friday from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama may just fade from the scene.

Clinton leads Obama for the support of the committed super delegates (249-213), but that number is flkuid and changing with every good or bad story that comes out. But, Pelosi’s comments could influence other House Democrats who are neutral in the presidential race and will attend the convention as super delegates.

In her interview, Pelosi also said that even if one candidate winds up with a larger share of the popular vote than the delegate leader, the candidate who has more delegates should prevail. Now she’s getting personal, but that is a reality that could happen. Meanwhile, John McCain is in Europe rleaxing and raising money for his campaign while appearing presidential. Isn’t it great to have a system where someone can WIN! So much for the Democratic egalitarian concept where to avoid someone losing, no one wins!.

Come to think of it, if this is how they run campaigns, do we want them running the nation?

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ernie@lrchouston.com

Meet Heather Podesta, Washington’s favorite female lobbist.  She’s the new “it” girl.  Heather Podesta is the Washington DC lobbyist who has made a name for herself as one of the toughest females in Washington. Sometimes with and sometimes against husband and fellow lobbyist Tony Podesta.

Podesta is described as being the ultimate Democratic strategist, a woman that’s not trying to be one of the guys. Not only do they love her for it; they reward her with alot of business, a 65 percent increase just this year to $3.4 million.

***If She Were A Man, Would She’d Have Raised More Money?***

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Heather Podesta currently lobbies for health-care clients such as Cigna and HealthSouth, drugmaker Eli Lilly and of course Susan G. Komen for the Cure; financial powerhouses such as Prudential and Swiss Reinsurance Co.; not to mention energy companies such as Marathon Oil, and Climate Masters, a geothermal heating firm.

The Washington Post just did an article on Heather outlining her ability to be the Insiders Insider in Washington DC and describes her as “an It Girl in a new generation of young, highly connected, built-for-the-Obama-era lobbyists.

Last year at the Democratic Convention she wore a scarlet letter “L” to taunt Obama for vilifying lobbyist during his campaign. She went thorugh about a dozen fonts before settling on a Gothic-style letter, which became such a popular she gave away over a 100 them.

Times Blogger Karen Tumulty has pointed out that it’s very risky for lobbyists to flaunt their influence in huge feature stories, and ponders what the fallout might be if any for Heather Podesta.  ”Commonsense rule #1 for influence peddlers: Don’t flaunt it,” Tumulty writes.

We’ll let you know what happens in the next few days as people continue to read and learn about Heather Podesta.

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Gentlemen, ladies, and not so genteel members of humanity (fopr whom Denver has a newly made jail awaiting you) it’s time for two weeks of man-made hype, division, anger, character assassination, and the worst that American politics can produce. The Democratic Convention is followed by the Republican convention wherein the worst of human consciousness will be on display.

Am I happy with either choice? No way!

I don’t have a horse in this race and only time will tell what I do come November. I see my choices as between a candidate who will kill babies (abortion) and one who kill older teenagers and adults (war). I see my choices as between on candidate that will raise taxes to support social programs and one that will keep taxes high to support a $12 billion dollar war habit. I see my chocies as between one candidate who seems to not like America as much as I and one who seems to love it far more (can you say idolizes) than I do.

By the way, both men do have good qualities. But both men are politicians!

The Democratic convention is now ready for prime time, but prime time what? Hillary is going to get her day in the sun and so will Bubba, but after the Clinton’s get the few moments of TV fame, it’s on to what wrong with the Bush-McCain ticket followed by a week of what’s wrong with the Obama-Biden ticket.

Is O’Reilly the only one looking out for the “folks”?  

Seriously, we afre facing a serious meltdown in being a civil society. Politics has always been a rough and tumble indoor sport, but of recent, it’s become a no-holds-barred, kill your opponent’s character and take no hostages. Where’s the people with a transformed consciousness that see that we’re all in this together?

Watch the video related to Democratic Convention

8.25.08 Sen. Ted Kennedy, recently undergoing surgery for a brain tumor, made a surprise speech to the Democratic Convention in Denver

Help answer the question about Democratic Convention

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As a spiritual-futurist my commentaries and articles deal primarily with an interpretation of current events in light of macro-universal forces at play.