Seen and heard on airport concourses and city streets on Saturday, just ahead of the start of the Republican National Convention: 10: 30 AM TO NOON, MINNEAPOLIS- ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Delegates in McCain caps, volunteers with campaign buttons, campaign staff members with BlackBerries, journalists bearing laptop-computer-sized briefcases, are coming into baggage claim in gusts. A quartet of women serenades them with patriotic songs, and volunteers behind towers of red, white and blue balloons are handing out goodie boxes of General Mills products: Chex, Fiber One bars and others.

O.P. Ditch, a delegate from Woodbridge, Va., arrives, heavily laden, looking for a way to reach his hotel, the Radisson University. It's his second trip to Minnesota.

"The first was for the Super Bowl, to see the Redskins win, in - what was it, '92?"

For long stretches, between flights - airport officials say this is one of the year's quieter weekends there -- teams of friendly white polo-shirted greeters stand totally unoccupied. When a new bunch comes in, they start hunting down delegates, rather than waiting to be sought out.

"You know," a greeter tells a group of out-of-towners, "St. Paul is mentioned many times in the Bible, but Minneapolis? Never."

EARLY TO MID AFTERNOON, ON THE STREETS OF DOWNTOWN ST. PAUL

A dramatic change in mood, as the sunny, colorful high spirits of the airport are replaced by the lockdown mentality of the area around the Xcel Energy Center.

Guys sweating in an August sun are erecting dull steel fencing to form a secure perimeter. Cops and squad cars are everywhere. Important people are draped in plasticized credentials. A man stands beside the entrance to the Xcel Center, holding a placard denouncing "John McBlood," who "says millions more must die" in Iraq. Facing Xcel, on a bleak parking lot, Fox News has built a fenced-in military-style compound, with access only for the credentialed.

But just a couple blocks away, MSNBC looks to be creating something like the outdoor music set for Jay Leno, a portable soundstage in the midst of leafy Rice Park. Vernard Gantt, manager of technical operations for NBC News, sits on a park bench, drawing contrasts. Whereas in Denver they had a parking lot, he says, here the backdrop will be a beautiful park, a fountain and a sculpture.

"And the city has bent way over backwards for us," he says happily. "Right now St. Paul cops are trying to get the Secret Service to do something for us that for two months we've been told can't be done." A moment later, he learns they've succeeded.

"This," he says, "would never happen in New York or L.A."

John Rhodes, his wife, Kathy, and their daughter Amy, from Safford, Ariz., have their picture taken beside a topiary elephant out front of the St. Paul Hotel.

"You know," John says, "we've been to Washington, D.C., and other places, and this is one of the cleanest, prettiest cities, with the nicest people, we've ever seen. We saw more water coming in on the airplane than we have in the whole state of Arizona."

They are holding a brochure describing St. Paul's Grand Avenue, and are eager to see it. They're disappointed to learn that it would be a pretty ambitious walk, but that pretty soon double-decker buses will be shuttling delegates there, where shopkeepers eagerly await.

David Peterson • 612-673-4440