For those who try to read the tea leaves at political conventions, the Chesapeake Bay gets a rare boost in the Democratic party platform being presented today in Denver.  

"We support a comprehensive solution for restoring our national treasures - such as the Great Lakes, Everglades and Chesapeake Bay - including expanded scientific research and protections for species and habitats there," the draft platform reads. 

Whether that means an Obama administration would give a big federal boost to bay restoration remains to be seen.  But it's been quite a while, apparently, since our dear bay merited mention in the laundry list of positions on which Democratic candidates have campaigned for the White House. 

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, to be formally handed the party's nomination later this week, has long been an advocate of cleaning up the Great Lakes.  The environmental policy statement on his campaign Web site has an entire section devoted to the lakes.  Apparently lobbying from inside and outside of Obama's campaign persuaded party leaders to add the Chesapeake and the Everglades to the plank vowing to work to restore the nation's waters.

One insider plugging for the bay was David Bancroft, former president of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, a Baltimore-based regional nonprofit working to restore the bay. He's now an environmental adviser to the Obama campaign.  Before his stint at the alliance, Bancroft had worked for the Great Lakes Governors Council.

Bancroft wrote in an email that party officials from Maryland and Virginia also pushed for some mention of the Chesapeake, as did several speakers during the nationwide round of public meetings the party had to solicit ideas for its platform.   It probably didn't hurt, either, that Maryland's lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown, was tapped to help write the platform.

It may well be the first time the party's platform has specifically pledged to fight to restore the Chesapeake.  I could not find any such mentions in platform statements going back into the 1960s.

It's not clear if the Republican party will match the Dems in vowing fealty to the Chesapeake.  The GOP's platform apparently is still being drafted.  Arizona Sen. John McCain, that party's presumptive nominee, mentions Gettysburg, the Grand Canyon and the Everglades among the "national treasures" he pledges to preserve.