From the missing blogger

Despite my best efforts, I have failed in live blogging. Here is something I tried to send last night at 2:33 a.m. Montreal time...

My apologies for being MIA. I have been crazy busy but having fun at this convention.

A few thoughts.

On tonight's speeches: Bill Graham was excellent. I am continually impressed by Shawn Graham's continued improvements. It was too bad that Frank McKenna was just introducing Howard Dean, in an introduction he did not have the same fire he usually does. Dean's speech was good, but the video that introduced him was WAY over the top and turned a lot of people off. He spoke with well practiced French which sparked thunderous cheers and applause from the crowd.

On the campaigns: It is really early to tell. Many delegates have not arrived (the lion's share are expected tomorrow, the deadline is 9am Friday). The big four all had demostrations as their candidates arrived and registered as delegates. The Ignatieff group was by far the largest while the Rae, Kennedy and Dion groups were of similar size. (Spin Alert) This bodes well for Kennedy as one assumes Quebec delegates have arrived disproprtionately to other regions and Kennedy should be way smaller. Only Ignatieff and Kennedy seem to have public campaign offices and Kennedy's is far more accessible. I am surprised by the number and enthusiasm of Ignatieff delegates. Perhaps his people are not as turned off as some have speculated.

On the convention: The convention hall, first opened up for the Dean speech tonight, was much better than I had expected. It is a flat room but they've done a great job with it. The candidate's boxes leave a lot to be desired however with only 3ft curtains separating them, it makes it difficult for the candidates to have private conversations. I am told that as of end of today over 2300 delegates had registered. Sounds as though this will be well attended considering that most registrations are not yet expected.