Feeling the Bern at 95 degrees: A reporter’s journal from the Democratic National Convention

‘Another former Democrat.” Philly is full of them

Rebecca Waring of Baltimore said she was “horrified” by recently leaked Democratic National Committee emails. (Matt Pearce / Los Angeles Times)

(Test)

DAY 2, 2:28 p.m.: Rebecca Waring's sign said "ANOTHER FORMER DEMOCRAT brought to you by DWS and the DNC." The DWS stood for U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida. The DNC stood for the Wasserman-Schultz-headed Democratic National Committee.

The recent leak of internal Democratic committee emails — apparently showing the supposedly neutral national committee's bias against Sanders — has already whipped up resentment among the Sanders supporters who are gathered around Philadelphia City Hall.

"I made this after I read the emails on WikiLeaks," Waring, 57, of Baltimore, told me. "I was just horrified. So unfair."

I saw another woman with a sign taped on her back that simply bore the words "WIKILEAKS" and "DNC," with the "DNC" crossed out.

Several of the Sanders supporters I spoke to already believed the primaries had been tilted against them — that there had been some kind shenanigans or outright fraud that skewed the vote toward Hillary Clinton.

The emails have now only hardened that view among some supporters who talked to me.

Kristy Marshall, 57, holding a sign bearing "DNC: Destroying Nation's Confidence," said she'd already believed there's been "collusion between HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] and DNC." The emails posted on WikiLeaks, she said, were proof.

"To have it in black and white is — huh," Marshall said.

Still feeling the Bern in Philadelphia, at 95 degrees

Demonstrators take part in a clean-energy march in Philadelphia on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

(Test)

DAY 1, 12:55 p.m.: The drugstores in downtown Philly might want to stockpile more aspirin and deodorant.

If I have any prediction for how the Democratic National Convention will go when it starts tomorrow, all I can tell you is that it's going to be in the upper 90s all week and the Berniecrats plan to be out in force on the streets of Philly, protesting the party and agitating for a miracle.

It's 95 degrees right now, and I've already seen more protesters this morning in Philadelphia than I saw all last week in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention.

In fact, I've been wandering through a crowd of at least several hundred demonstrators who gathered around Philadelphia's city hall for a climate activist rally, and I still have yet to see a single Hillary Clinton sign, button or t-shirt.

What I've seen instead, aside from the anti-fracking and anti-climate-change signs: Sanders shirts. Sanders buttons. A few Green Party shirts. A guy dressed in a rat suit and a sign that says "DemocRATS give rats a bad name," holding a giant pencil with its own small sign that says, "Write in Bernie."

And this was just the first of several rallies and marches planned. There's a "March For Bernie" planned near here in a couple hours.

I moseyed over to a gentleman with a pro-Sanders sandwich-board setup and asked him what he thought about Hillary. "Who's Hillary?" responded Mark Kelderman, 60, of Brownsville, Wis., deadpan at first.

The race for the Democratic nomination is over in all but name only. But like many Sanders supporters I talked to this morning, Kelderman wants the superdelegates to vote for Sanders even though Sanders has endorsed Clinton.

"After I got done throwing up, I decided I would make my own vote of conscience come election time," he said. Not Clinton or Donald Trump. "At this point, maybe Jill Stein," the Green Party candidate.

I asked him what it would take to make him vote for Clinton. "A brain injury," Kelderman said. "I don't see it happening."

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Follow @Mattdpearce on Twitter.