The Agenda with Joe Solmonese was live from “Radio Row” at the Pepsi Center in Denver on Monday night with complete coverage of the Democratic National Convention. It was all politics, all the time with a star-studded guest list and perspectives from members of Congress, gay delegates, journalists and pundits. Download or listen to Joe and co-host Mary Breslauer introducing the show:

Kicking off the show, we welcomed one of our community’s brightest stars and the only openly lesbian member of Congress – Wisc. Rep. Tammy Baldwin. She gave a preview of her speech the following day and how the GLBT community needs to get involved in the election. Download or listen:

One of the more familiar faces on CNN these days is Democratic strategist and Huffington Post Political Editor Hilary Rosen. She dropped by our booth to talk about how the general election match-up between Sens. Obama and McCain will play out. Rosen was followed by the other openly gay member of Congress, Chairman Barney Frank. As always, he brought his characteristic wit and insight to the show. Download or listen:

We love celebrity sightings and a bit of gossip so we welcomed Mary Ann Akers who writes The Sleuth blog at WashingtonPost.com. We discussed the hot tickets in town and also the ethics reforms that are making party-going complicated for politicians. Download or listen:

This convention brought a record number of openly gay delegates and we spoke with two of them from the Pepsi Center. Both active in the National Stonewall Democrats, Chris Porter and Sonya Lewis talked about their experiences in Denver and bringing that energy home to their communities. Download or listen:

Much discussion about Hillary Clinton and her supporters marked the opening days of the convention and we brought in Ellen Moran of EMILY’s List to give her perspective. She also shared new polling from her organization on how women voters are thinking about this election. Download or listen:

On Wednesday, Mass. State Senate President Therese Murray spoke for her delegation in the convention roll-call proudly proclaiming the Bay State as the first in equality in marriage. She was our guest on Monday to discuss marriage in Massachusetts as well as efforts still underway to turn back the clock on equality. Download or listen:

We thought it was important to hear from the convention hosts and we were fortunate enough to snag an interview with Colo. Congresswoman Diana DeGette. She talked about Democrats’ electoral prospects in the west as well as her new book, “Sex, Science and Stem Cells.” Download or listen:

The night wouldn’t have been complete without hearing from the Obama campaign itself and to do that we welcomed Dave Noble, head of GLBT Outreach for the campaign. He shared his thoughts on the importance of this election and then I shared some interviews I had recently done with the GLBT people who know Barack Obama. Download or listen:

Broadcasting from our spot on Radio Row earlier in the day was Gayle King – better known to most as “Oprah’s Best Friend.” A radio personality in her own right, King sat down with Mary to talk about her morning interview with Michelle Obama and her perspective on the race. Download or listen:

We tried to squeeze as much as we could into our two hours from Denver so with just a couple of final moments left, I joined Mary to wrap-up the show. Download or listen:

We are just a week from the Democratic Convention and we had a great preview show full of politics last night on The Agenda with Joe Solmonese.

We started out with a preview of the Democratic Platform that will be voted on next week. The National Stonewall Democrats hosted a conference call briefing last week featuring Rep. Tammy Baldwin and we shared some highlights from her remarks.

Then we welcomed Kevin Jennings, founder and executive director of GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. His tenure at the organization working for safe schools is coming to a close and we heard about how time at GLSEN as well as his work as GLBT fundraising co-chair for Barack Obama. Download parts one and two or listen:
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We love entertainment as well as politics so we were thrilled to welcome Ted Johnson, managing editor at the Hollywood trade newspaper “Variety.” He pens the popular blog “Wilshire and Washington” that tracks the intersection of the entertainment and political worlds. Download parts one and two or listen:
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For the news of the day including talk about Vice Presidential picks and convention speeches, we hosted Sarah Just. She’s the senior producer for ABCNews Digital Media and manages the political content and Washington news coverage for ABCNews.com and their broadband cable channel, ABCNewsNow.

Finally we couldn’t think of anyone better to preview the conventions than former HRC Board of Directors Co-chair Mike Berman. A veteran of Democratic politics he served as Vice President Mondale’s Counsel and Deputy Chief of Staff and has worked at every Democratic convention since 1968 including scheduling the public sessions at six conventions. Download or listen:

It was a summer smorgasbord on The Agenda with Joe Solmonese last night. With the Olympics upon us we started on with the co-founder of OutSports.com, Jim Buzinski. With over 10,000 athletes competing, we thought the number of openly GLBT athletes was rather small. Jim filled us in.

Turning to politics, we welcomed a return guest, Matt Bai of the New York Times. We discussed the current state of the presidential race and how it relates to his book, “The Argument” about the internal battle to remake Democratic politics. Download parts one and two or listen:
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From there we went to music and welcomed lesbian singer/songwriter Gaye Adegbalola into the studio. She recently released her fourth solo CD “Gaye Without Shame.” Download or listen:

Keeping in the entertainment world but turning to TV, Lisa Sherman of the Logo network joined us. Through market research they’ve detected a striking shift in the GLBT demographic and how GLBT people think about integration into mainstream culture.

As the saying goes, “it’s the economy stupid” so we welcomed journalist Phil Dine to discuss one of the most important issues in this year’s election. An expert on the labor movement and author of “State of the Unions,” Dine shared his insights on how labor will affect this year’s election. Download or listen:

Finally we had a conversation with one of our movement’s generous and visionary leaders. Recently Bruce Bastian made a $1 million pledge to the campaign to defeat California’s marriage amendment. He was our guest to discuss what makes him fight for rights in places like California that are far off for his home in Utah. Download or listen: