he DNC party, the one with music, drinks, lots of food and networking is about to start in our city.

While we all gear up to host the largest party in town, with 6,000 delegates and four times as many journalist from all over the world, some house rules must be observed.
Since the TV and photo cameras will all be rolling and zoomed in on us it is incumbent upon every single Philadephian, specially at the leadership level, “to behave and show kind manners to all.”

Our Philly shrug, and/or tobacco-chewing attitude, must stop even if it is for the week, the week all the eyes of the world will be literally looking  at us.

To hear already stories of lawyerly deception, or exclusion of the little ones at the hands of the mighty powerful, or public stories of cowboy politics, will be horrifying.

As much as it and will be a shame to all us— leaders or not.

Just an example:

AL DÍA was invited to participate in the “PoliticalFest,” put together by the host committee, presided nominally by former Governor Ed Rendell.

This “PoliticalFest,” a huge success when Republicans came to town, is now back to entertain the Democrats with mostly funny and serious stories of our past as well as of our present.

As we accepted, we also asked to allow AL DÍA to extend its tent to touch more people, without encroaching on anybody else’s.

The agency in charge of the logistics pushed back on us as we asked to, please, not pigeon-hole AL DÍA along the Philadelphia Gay News and the Philadelphia Tribune, two other respectable pubs in town.

No answer so far. We hope Mr. Rendell is reading this editorial and avoids further scuffle by doing the right thing: inclusion, not exclusion; celebrate the little ones as much as the big. Don’t obfuscate the cameras.

After all it is, indeed, party time! No, Ed?