This morning’s last breakfast meeting for Missouri’s Democratic delegation was all about passion, unity and logistics.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, had the crowd on its feet as he used his considerable preacher skills (he’s also a reverend) to tear into the Republicans on issues, while emphasizing their common humanity.

Take, for example, the Republican nominee for governor, U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof. “Kenny Hulshof is a good and decent guy,” Cleaver said. “I like Kenny Hulshof. He’s a fabulous athlete,” and a crack first-baseman on the GOP’s congressional baseball team.

But while Hulshof “is not a mean-spirited person,” Cleaver said Democrats should prepare for a mean-spirited against the Democratic nominee for governor, Attorney General Jay Nixon.

“The issues are not on their side, so they only have one thing left — attack the person,” Cleaver said.

He said it’s obvious that the GOP’s chief strategy against Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. In the case of Nixon, Cleaver predicted that Republicans will employ an approach that “will turn (Hulshof’s) stomach.”

Cleaver also got the crowd going with his call to be proud of what Democrats stand far. Referring to the GOP assertion that some Democrats are “hard-line liberals,” Cleaver said he was proud of that moniker, if it referred to his support for Social Security, healthcare for poor children, a strong public education system, and manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

On that last point, he brought down the house when he said, “If being a hard-line liberal means I want to preserve jobs in the United States, call me an ignorant hard-line liberal.”

It was tough for Nixon to follow Cleaver’s address. Nixon did so by laying out various issues that he feels passionately about, including his opposition to the selling of assets of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority and his promise to restore the state’s Medicaid cuts.

But Nixon also unveiled a newer line of attack, in which he accused the GOP of being anti-science and against new technology. “We’ve got to invest in science and technology…We’ve got to embrace science, not reject it,” Nixon said.

But after all the talk, reality sat in. Delegates were cautioned to get aboard shuttle buses early for Obama’s speech tonight before 75,000 at Invesco Field, the home of the Denver Broncos.

By the way, photos of President George W. Bush’s 2004 GOP acceptance speech are circulating around Denver. The backdrop consisted of white columns — the same type to be used at Invesco, and the brunt of Republican jabs.

Here is more video from Adam Jadhav: