The Convention Blog

Courtesy of our friends at the MA Republican Party, I have a guest pass for this week’s events here in St. Paul. This means that I can ride on the official buses, sit in the area and generally wander around the Xcel Center. The bus ride is unusual in several ways. First, the bus comes with its own armed police officer sitting in the first row. Second, the bus has a large number of other police officers and vehicles looking after it as it goes on its way. Traffic was stopped several times so that we could cross intersections more quickly. Third, the bus doesn’t drive in the straight path to the venue, it makes a number of diversionary turns. I’d be surprised if it took the same route today that it took yesterday as well. Fourth, the bus has its own lane as it nears the Xcel Center. Fifth the bus lets its riders off well inside the security perimeter. The riders never see or hear the protests on the other side of the building. Sixth we had a helicopter watching our progress on the way back yesterday and there was a chained gate that led to the interstate that was opened for our bus as we left the Convention and, seventh, the bus was spotless and came with trash bags for delegates to put junk in. Nothing can be left anywhere on the bus.

The other interesting part of having such great access is that it provides insight into what an official delegation does at a Convention. The delegates, obviously, sit on the floor and vote during the Convention but the delegation also has a breakfast meeting on a daily basis replete with prominent local speakers and discusses local political business. In addition, the media that attend are all from the Boston and Springfield markets.

The actual Convention was pretty much like watching Congress yesterday. Business was done much in the way that a legislature would do it, including all of the parliamentary devices that anyone who watches C-SPAN would be familiar with. In keeping with the way in which Republicans signal the audience the session opened with the pledge of alligience, the national anthem and a prayer then closed with a benediction. The most interesting business that went on was the appearances of Laura Bush and Cindy McCain. The both spoke on the theme of the day: Service and used their speeches as a platform to raise money for hurricane victimes. If the Bush Administration has been punished for its bungling during Katrina, there was no way the McCain campaign was getting itself in a similar position.

 The most interesting unofficial business was the campaign’s effort to dump the bad news about Sarah Palin’s daughter under the hurricane coverage. It didn’t work and it was pretty funny to hear many of the people who spent years chasing after Bill Clinton fret that Barack Obama might try to use this as a wedge issue. No chance. Obama’s response was right on the money and most in keeping with his brand promise of a different kind of politics. Plus, if he pounced on that, it would justify attacks from a slew of people on him. Better, from his perspective, to let the media do the dirty work and stay above the fray. Personally, I don’t care what any of these people do in their personal lives and never have. I think it particularly reprehensible to drag their kids and relatives into this regardless of the circumstances. It is the lack of ideological differences and the dominance of the marketing model in American politics that causes this and encourages its propagation.

This morning, I got the bright idea to go watch Arianna Huffington speak to the Washington Center students downtown. To say that nothing went right, would be an understatement. The MA Republicans had breakfast with Mitt Romney and I’m sorry I opted not to attend that. She was pretty good as a speaker but only spoke for about fifteen minutes total. After that Congressman Mickey Edwards, our friend from the Congress to Campus Program, led a panel of Republican state officials looking at the future of their party. It was interesting to hear actual politicians discuss all of the concepts associated with brand failure and struggling, as a business would, to figure out what would come next.

The real convention starts tonight and that should provide its own interesting story for the morning. Tonight will be John McCain favorable bio night with W, Fred Thompson, and Joe Lieberman.