Wes Moore, the Democratic governor of Maryland, was busy greeting guests when his aide directed him out of an afternoon cocktail party at an Italian restaurant overlooking the Chicago River. Accompanied by a team of aides and security personnel, he and his wife, Dawn, exited through a side door, navigating through a narrow hallway filled with trays of meatballs and lamb chops, passing into a prep kitchen before finally entering a spacious service elevator.
The Democratic National Convention serves as a festive gathering but also involves intense logistical demands for prominent elected officials like Moore, whose presence is highly sought after.
“You see a lot of back kitchens,” Moore remarked. “There’s a saying we learned in the military: ‘Stay frosty.’ Because things are going to move and shift, and I think there’s been a lot of that at the convention.”
At 45, Moore, a former Army captain who served in Afghanistan, was a featured guest at the cocktail reception, hosted by the With Honor PAC, an organization that collaborates with veterans in Congress. He had just come from another event across the city, where he participated in a panel discussion organized by the Black Economic Alliance, discussing themes of patriotism, family, and his initiatives on criminal justice reform, engaging with numerous attendees.