CHARLOTTE, N.C. â€" Hernando delegate Kelly Jacobs gets a lot of attention with her handmade partisan frocks, including a sequined dress depicting President Barack Obama's likeness that's literally making news around the world.
It's mostly black on one side, mostly white on the other.
She's been interviewed by news crews from Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Al-Jazeera, China and everywhere in the U.S. She says she does it so that she can get a message out.
The story she tells that Obama's signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act known as "Obamacare," is already holding her world together, and protects a lot of those she says who, in ignorance, think they oppose it.
"I come here and all of a sudden a lot of people are suddenly interested in how the Affordable Care Act will (help) my family," she said. "My husband has had lupus for 20 years. He's in pain every day and he always goes to work but he always fears that he'll become so ill, and he'll reach the lifetime cap (on insurance payments) and they'll take our home, and his wife and children won't have.
"So when this passed, it was a huge weight off his shoulders," she said. The provision that lets her two college-aged sons stay on her plan also helps, she said.
If Mitt Romney carries out his plan to revoke Obamacare, she says, the prohibition against denying coverage for people with pre-existing condition will disappear. That will be harmful personally, she says, but she's also thinking about her community.
"My state would suffer so much," she says. "But my friends and neighbors who are Republicans will vote for Mitt Romney. They'll take away my health care. They'll take away their own health care on their parents."
Memphian applauds speech
Memphian David Upton, a partisan attending the Democratic National Convention, lingered on the floor of the Time Warner Arena early Friday after Obama delivered his acceptance speech.
"I thought Barack Obama really laid out a clear and concise message about why he needs to be re-elected," he said. "He made a fantastic economic populist argument about how his policies will move us in the right direction and he was pretty clear and convincing."
A changed Obama?
Taiwo Stanback, a staffer for Congressman Steve Cohen, said early Friday from the convention floor, that Obama's "demeanor" showed how his job has changed him.
"I think it was his demeanor when he first came out, and the confidence that he brought, that was different from maybe four or eight years ago.," she said. "'It happened. We may not be where we want to be, but we're on the road."
Delegate likes future with Obama
Tennessee's youngest delegate, Charles Uffelman, 18, a freshman at the University of Memphis, listened carefully to Obama's speech, and came away thinking that "he wants America to succeed despite what you're hearing on the right … If he is elected in November, America will lead the world in the future. We are not in decline. We're on the way up and we're on the way back."
Gay delegate grateful
Renick Taylor of Biloxi, a gay delegate for Mississippi, has been contributing to the image Mississippi Democrats are creating with his provocative imagery.
"Barack Obama has done more for my community than any person throughout American history, and that's not a light statement," he said as the convention hall began to clear in the early hours of Friday morning,
"He expanded the domestic partnership coverage for government employees so they can cover their partners on their health care. He's allowed gays to serve openly in the military. When he came out in favor of same-sex marriage, the polls were against him, 45 percent. Just a few months afterward, we're at 55 percent. That's leadership. One man did that … Now we have a majority if Americans thinking I should have the same rights as everyone else.
"I owe him a lot."
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