Wes Moore, the Democratic governor of Maryland, was still greeting attendees as his aide guided him away from an afternoon cocktail party held at an Italian restaurant overlooking the Chicago River. Surrounded by a team of aides and security, he and his wife, Dawn, exited through a side door and navigated a narrow hallway lined with trays of meatballs and lamb chops, eventually finding their way into a spacious service elevator.
The Democratic National Convention not only serves as a social gathering but also presents a continuous logistical challenge for prominent elected officials like Mr. Moore, who is in high demand for appearances.
“You see a lot of back kitchens,” he noted. “There’s a slogan 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, that we’ve seen, from the convention.”
At 45, Mr. Moore, a former Army captain with service in Afghanistan, was a key speaker at the cocktail event hosted by the With Honor PAC, which collaborates with veterans in Congress. He had just come from a panel discussion organized by the Black Economic Alliance, where he addressed topics including patriotism, his family, and his efforts in criminal justice reform, shaking many hands along the way.