Surely at least a few of the passengers on the Sunday morning flight from LaGuardia to Denver had no connection to the impending coronation of Barack Obama. But the murmur in the boarding area was of little else. As we marched up the jetway--the kind with a surprising number of kinks and curves--the people behind me were speculating about how quickly Hillary Clinton would release her delegates to her former rival. And once we were aboard, even the stewardess seemed to concede that the flight was essentially one big tour bus: "Please, the faster you stow your bags in the overhead compartment, the faster we'll get to the Democratic Convention in Denver."

Of course, the convention proper has yet to begin. But the Democrats did kick things off early this afternoon, with an elaborate interfaith forum at the Colorado Convention Center. To strike a properly ecumenical note, the DNCC invited a wide range of participants, including Bishop Charles E. Blake of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ, Dr. Ingrid Mattson of the Islamic Society of North America, social activist Sister Helen Prejean, and Rabbi Tzvi Weinreb of the Orthodox Union. The Propeller team arrived in Denver too late to attend the forum. But we did speak to some of the audience members as they slowly vacated the auditorium. Most seemed inspired by the proceedings. Jeff Fallis, a delegate from Macon, Georgia, was encouraged by the note of conciliation, as you can see in the video below:

But another audience member, George Zinn, sounded a little more dubious, especially when it came to Sister Prejean's contributions. Speaking as a Republican, he urged Barack Obama to put even more distance between himself and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He also expressed some discomfort with the prospect of a Mormon in the White House (should Mitt Romney get the nod from John McCain), and generally wondered whether religion hadn't become too intrusive a presence in American politics: