Udall gets ready for Invesco speech on Thursday

U.S. Rep. Mark Udall (D-Eldorado Springs) was still working on his speech Wednesday for Thursday's Democratic National Convention rally at Invesco Field.

"Every word is valuable," Udall said. "You put a dollar amount on every word in the sense that you want each word to mean something."

Udall will likely speak for about four minutes at about 6:15 p.m. -- dinnertime in Denver, but prime time on the East Coast.

"I'm going to talk about the Rocky Mountain West way, disagreeing without being disagreeable, the right ideas aren't Democratic (or) Republican ideas -- they're American ideals," Udall said. "And I'm going to focus on a new energy economy. This is a passion of mine -- it's so important, and Colorado has such potential and enormous opportunity to lead the way."

Udall said the only other time he appeared before a crowd comparable to the 75,000 people expected at Invesco Field Thursday evening was when he conducted the pre-game coin toss at a University of Colorado football game.

"I also remind myself that if you fill Invesco Field seven times over, that's the number of people I represent in my congressional district," Udall said.