MILWAUKEE _ The convention hall in Milwaukee is eerily empty, delegates and their nominees are marooned at home many miles away, and protesters are chanting into a void.
All the convening will be virtual when Democrats kick off their national convention Monday night to nominate former Vice President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris to top the party's ticket. But the familiar anxieties, exuberances and outbreaks of irritability are very much intact.
The coronavirus crisis _ which pushed the four-day gathering almost entirely out of Wisconsin and into cyberspace _ will be the main theme, with one speaker after another taking aim for two hours every night at President Donald Trump's failures to rein in a deadly pandemic and a brutal recession.
"Americans' eyes have been opened, and we have seen in this crisis the truth: that government matters and leadership matters," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will say, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks.
A Californian whose 65-year-old father died of COVID-19, Kristin Urquiza, will say her dad's only preexisting condition was trusting the president. "And for that, he paid with his life," her prepared remarks say.
The big question is how many Americans will tune in for a convention unlike any other _ something like a national Zoom meeting _ and how speeches designed to enthrall an arena full of cheering delegates will play when condensed and streamed onto individual TV and computer screens.
But even before the first convention soundbite was lobbed into cyberspace, it was clear that the inability to bring thousands of jostling delegates together during a pandemic would not mean a lack of theater.
The Democrats' announcement Monday that opening night would feature speeches from not one, but four Republicans _ former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, unsuccessful California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, and former New York Congresswoman Susan Molinari _ touched off a flurry of anger on progressive social media.
The blistering critiques of the lineup were led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has drawn a national spotlight in her first term as a leader of the progressive wing.
But Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a progressive icon, will speak after the Republicans. He will take the stage just before a keynote address by former first lady Michelle Obama, a beloved figure in the party.
"I know Joe," Michelle Obama will say, according to excerpts of her taped remarks. "He will govern as someone who has lived a life that the rest of us can recognize."
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a newcomer to the national political scene whose demands for a more competent virus response from Washington put her on Biden's shortlist of running mate prospects, will join Cuomo in attacking Trump's handling of the crisis.
Several of Biden's rivals in the Democratic primary, who will talk about why they ran and why they now support the former vice president, also will appear.
The "We the People" theme for Monday night is meant to shore up progressive support for Biden, but also signal to suburban and rural voters who have soured on Trump that they can find a place in the Democratic Party.
"I'm a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country," Kasich will say. "We can all see what's going on in our country and all the questions that are facing us, and no one person or party has all the answers. But what we do know is that we can do better than what we are seeing today."
Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a Biden campaign co-chair, said the four Republicans were added to the Democrats' lineup to appeal to the "'silent Biden voters,' those Republicans who feel bullied, those Republicans that feel they will be isolated if they support Biden, and that they will be picked on. This will show them they are not alone."
To broaden the audience _ and give the feel of a live audience for the virtual convention _ the party is hosting watch parties across the country. The proceedings will be projected onto the screens of drive-in movie theaters in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Delaware.
The convention, such as it is, opens at a time of relative stability in the presidential race.
For months, polls have shown Biden ahead, both nationally and in the battleground states needed to win a majority in the Electoral College, including here in Wisconsin.
Some polls taken since last Tuesday, when he announced Harris as his running mate, have given the pair a double-digit lead over Trump, though most analysts believe the race will tighten by November.
Unlike most previous nominees, who had to fill in their background, Biden has been a national political figure for nearly five decades, first as a U.S. senator from Delaware and then as vice president under President Barack Obama.
His acceptance speech on Thursday, campaign officials said, will stick to the same themes Biden has steadfastly pursued since he entered the race: restoring the "soul" of the country and unifying America in a chaotic and unstable time.
Still, a virtual extravaganza presents both opportunities and risk.
Parts of Biden's life story are unknown to many voters who came of age after Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29. Although he has rolled out a series of policy proposals since clinching the nomination in March, much of the detail has been lost amid the pandemic and a national reckoning over racism.
The nightly focus on Biden, Harris and their fellow Democrats will allow them to fill many of those blanks. Harris' speech Wednesday night will also serve as her introduction to the largest political audience she has ever faced.
Trump, forever conscious of ratings and the show business aspects of politics, will almost assuredly seize on any lack of audience interest to press his claim that Biden lacks the energy and leadership skills to lift the country from its malaise.
Milwaukee, which was supposed to host the convention, had the sad feel Monday of a city abandoned.
Sidewalks that would have been teeming with visitors _ as many as 50,000, planners projected _ were empty, save for a few scattered pedestrians enjoying a steamy afternoon. The weather was supposed to be one of Milwaukee's selling points, along with Wisconsin's status as a major political battleground.
Normally, the lobby of the headquarters hotel _ the downtown Hyatt Regency _ would have been a hive of intrigue, packed cheek-to-jowl with political dignitaries, reporters scribbling notes and tourists craning their necks to pick out the celebrities, real and imagined. Instead, just a handful of tables were occupied.
A reporter for Racine's newspaper interviewed a stray Biden delegate who came from Las Vegas to see the sights. On the wall-mounted TV, sportscaster Bob Costas soundlessly interviewed baseball's Bob Uecker, a Milwaukee native. The official convention souvenir shop, a cubby converted from the hotel business center, had not a single customer.
Nearby, outside the shuttered Fiserv Forum, where the convention was supposed to take place, a group of hard-hatted AT&T workers posed for a group photo as sea gulls scoured the plaza out front, unimpeded.
A few blocks away, in one of the few signs of political life, about a dozen anti-abortion protesters lined Wisconsin Avenue in a wordless protest, waving anti-Biden signs at the occasional car that passed.
Monica Miller, one of the organizers, said she had hoped a group of counterprotesters might come along and spark a bit of conflict to liven things up. But none showed.
Miller, though, was not discouraged. "We will be back out tomorrow," she said.
