Art Torres attempted to kick off the afternoon general session.  Unfortunately the first speaker, Jerry McNerney was nowhere to be found.  Torres actually said “paging Jerry McNerney.  If you can hear me come up to the front of the room.”  Congressman McNerney must have been out earshot because he never made it up to the podium.

Art spoke for a bit and then introduced Gavin Newsom.  Mayor Newsom at his impromptu meet the bloggers session told us that he had only been given 8 minutes to speak.  He may have some leeway now that McNerney is a no-show.

Newsom is focusing most of his remarks on his health care proposal and global warming/green standards.  The general theme is that “they say it can’t be done, but we are proving it can be done.”  He has now switched to education, stating it is not good enough just to stave off the cuts, but that we need to increase funding.  Newsom closed by talking about poverty and in particular public housing.

Overall it was a well received speech and most of the audience was standing and clapping as he concluded.

Cong. McNerney seems to have found his way to the stage.  Torres is introducing him at the moment.

McNerney is speaking without a teleprompter and is now focusing on the need to elect more Democrats to office.  He is using his race as example of inspiration to Democrats across the country.  It was a very short speech.  Art Torres seemed to call him Jerry Mac-a-Nerney as he left the stage.  He then gave a shout-out to Charlie Brown.