The Republican National Convention

Ready on the Right

Daily dispatches from St. Paul

Monday

THE most important feature of this year’s Republican convention is not its location, purpose or personalities. It is timing: for the first time in decades, the two parties convene in successive weeks. While most people celebrate the Labour Day holiday at home, the journalist class will arrive in St. Paul barely having recovered from Denver: the heat, the death-march-length walk from the security perimeter to the Pepsi Centre, the lack of seats, the alcohol.

If it’s September 11th, or it’s election night and they’ve just un-called Florida for Gore, urgency makes your exhaustion irrelevant. You don’t notice you’re tired until you climb into bed, and then you’re asleep in seven seconds. Conventions are exhausting precisely because they are extended infomercials, utterly devoid of urgency.

AP

Last week’s pressing questions: Can Barack Obama meet the huge expectations for his speech? Would he and Hillary Clinton reconcile? Can Joe Biden be an attack dog while folksily charming Reagan Democrats back into the fold? Could we have answered all these questions from New York and Washington? The answers were as predictable as the slogans in the hall: Yes we can. (Can I get into the Vanity Fair party? No, I can’t.)

But in contrast with Denver, there were, and remain, real unknowns going into St Paul. What would John McCain seek in a running-mate? A jolt of attention and energy from an unorthodox choice? A safe choice? A former rival? Joe Lieberman, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney all fell at some unseen hurdle. (The hurdles were more visible for Mr Lieberman; apparently, a host of Republican grandees urged Mr McCain at the last minute: no way, no how, no Joe.)

Sarah Palin slapped journalists awake on Friday morning. She was almost completely unknown until rumours began to fly early that day. Democratic delegates and the press trudged to the airport on Friday muttering “really pro-life”, “super-conservative” and “weird” (the last referring to the pick, not the woman herself).

Mark Green, a New York politician turned liberal radio-pundit, was on my flight; he admitted knowing next to nothing about her. When I mentioned that she is 44-years old, he merely said, “Makes Obama look old.”

All of this means Democrats can define her just as easily as Republicans can. Television commentators have not even settled on whether her name is pronounced Pale-in or Pal-in. The Obama campaign quickly sent journalists an e-mail saying, “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign-policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Mr Obama and Mr Biden themselves put out a kinder personal statement, congratulating her.

I’ll confess: I thought it was going to be Tim Pawlenty, for do-no-harm reasons. I then expected the Republicans next week to gird their loins, hoist shield and spear, and head frenzied into a conventional conservative attack, with Barack Obama’s name being mentioned far more often than John McCain’s in Denver. I expected a grimly determined, disciplined convention. To give up a journalist’s dirty secret, I had begun writing parts of this entry before Ms Palin was announced, for deadline reasons.

Suddenly, I had to dump a lot of copy, exactly as Mr McCain wanted. He snatched attention from Mr Obama’s triumphant speech. I now have no idea what to expect in St Paul. Can national-greatness conservatives, who love Mr McCain so much for his heroism in Vietnam and his steadfastness on Iraq, swallow a vice-president with less than two years’ experience running a state with fewer people in it than Delaware? Somehow I doubt their nerves will be calmed because, as Fox News just reported, she has dealt with Russia on fishing issues.

It seems from early reactions that her staunch social conservatism will rally the religious base. Reporters were suckered into playing up largely personal Clinton-Obama tensions. They have spent less time on the deep divisions between Mr McCain and much of his base. Mr McCain’s newfound orthodoxy on key issues may have helped him a bit, and Ms Palin may help much more. But will it play outside of St Paul?

Little matter for now. I head back into a cocoon, having just left one. It’s going to be a fascinating week. To my surprise, I find myself looking forward to it.

Tuesday

I had been expecting a predictable week. The Democrats had theirs in Denver, for the most part a successful one, which laid the ghost of bitterness between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to rest. The days were long and the nights longer, and by the end of the week in Denver, I was secretly dreading ploughing my way, exhausted, on to St Paul.

Sarah Palin was the first surprise. Over the weekend, especially on the venerable Sunday morning political chat shows, both parties struggled mightily to define the blank-slate candidate. Spin like this is common, but it was unusually polarised, even in this era.

EPA

For Republicans she was a brilliant pick, fresh and far from Washington, but experienced, tough and savvy, and a compelling face to boot. The religious right is genuinely ecstatic: she opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest, and thinks sex education should be replaced with abstinence-only teaching.

Democrats quickly sought to paint her both as dreadfully inexperienced (two years ago, she was running a town of 7,000) and a pander to the base by the former maverick John McCain. Blackberries between Denver and St. Paul began to hum with rival press releases, and I began to develop in my head the story of a newly energised party, improbably welded together by a John McCain who had managed both to thrill the base and dust off his maverick image.

When I arrived in St. Paul late Sunday night, though, the script began to change again: Hurricane Sarah had given way to a non-metaphorical hurricane, Gustav, bearing down on the Gulf coast. George Bush and Dick Cheney had announced they would stay in Washington to oversee relief efforts (their party breathed a sigh of relief) By the time I landed and checked the news, all of Monday’s events, except some mandatory legal business, had been binned or postponed.

After the usual bewildering search for press credentials and the press-filing center on Monday morning, I sat down to catch up on hurricane news, in order to give my editors a view of what there might be, if anything, to write about in St. Paul.

No one knew what Gustav would do. I chat with an editor in London about whether to write about the politicising of the storm. (John McCain talked up his trip to the coast; Barack Obama said he would stay away so as not to tax resources of the emergency personnel; each side is accusing the other of grandstanding.)

Monday afternoon, another storm breaks, this time of the metaphorical variety again. It is one of those that can either turn into a tropical depression and be forgotten, or gain hurricane strength and wreak damage. Rumours had swirled around far-left blogs that Sarah Palin had not actually been the mother of her fifth child; according to the gossip, she had covered for a pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol.

The rumours had not made it much past the blogs, but suddenly the Palins put out a press-release: we are very pleased to have five children, and also to tell the world that Bristol “came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned.” Indeed. Bristol is five months pregnant. She will marry the father and keep the child. Ms Palin’s opposition to sex-education seems suddenly relevant.

How will it play in the hall? I know it’s making reporters buzz. The secretary of commerce, briefing journalists as a courtesy, is asked about it. I hear another reporter quizzing a delegate about it. The Brazilian TV crew in the filing center are talking about it. Surely a frustration for Republicans, eager to get a different message out.

But for today, they have little control. The business in the hall is mostly routine; there are no rousing red-meat speeches. Laura Bush comes on, to hearty applause and cheers, at the end of the shortened day. She introduces videotaped messages from the (Republican) governors of the states hit by the hurricane. Cindy McCain, her would-be successor, joins her in appealing for donations to the gulf-state aid agencies. And then the benediction, at five o’clock, and the end of a very unusual day one.

Wednesday

WITH nothing much happening at the real convention yet, I decide to check in on the Ron Paul movement. I was surprised at the breadth and depth of his primary support. As depressed as the Republican party was, just about the only signs and bumper stickers I saw this winter (which I spent in Georgia) were for Mr Paul. But he mostly dropped off my radar after John McCain won, cropping up only late in the race, when an embarrassingly large number of people voted him after the race was effectively over.

On the first night of the convention, when nothing happened in St. Paul, I pile into a car and head up to a party supposedly held “10 miles” north of Minneapolis-St Paul. We drive far more than ten miles, finally reaching Blaine, Minnesota, where what looks like a high-school sports arena is filled to Friday-night football capacity for the party. Most of the partygoers are on the field, and mediocre country music wafts from a band onstage.

Bloomberg

The Paulites I meet seem more articulate and motivated than most of the delegates I’ve talked to at both major-party conventions. Each has a chief concern. Christe tells me she doesn’t know the first thing about Iraq, and neither does anyone she knows; why on earth are we invading it? Adam tells me that his big thing is civil liberties. Another one whose name I forget says that the metal in coins is worth more than the face-value of the coins these days; he wants the Federal Reserve abolished, and the current monetary system replaced by competing private currencies.

The Paul people are like that: over here, a view lots of people in both parties can agree with, like opposition to the war. And over there, a view so far out of the mainstream I sputter to rebut it politely. One woman dressed up as the Statue of Liberty has a sign mentioning Mr McCain and the letters CFR. She says that she is voting against Mr McCain because he’s a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The Council is an organisation so mainstream many consider its flagship publication, Foreign Affairs, a snoozer for its predictable ideas. But many of the Paul people think it’s a secret cabal, like the Freemasons or the Illuminati. (Disclosure: your correspondent is a junior member—of the CFR, not the Illuminati. Either it has no secret agenda for global mastery, or they haven’t yet decided I’m trustworthy enough. Let me in, would you?)

The feel at the huge Rally for the Republic, held the next day across the river in a basketball arena in Minneapolis, is similar. There are huge cheers for opposition to the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. But the biggest is inspired by Jesse Ventura, the former Reform Party governor of Minnesota.

The burly former professional wrestler says that the second amendment protecting gun ownership isn’t there to protect hunting and fishing. “The second amendment is there so that if our government gets out of control, we can rise up and change it.” The room is electrified: thousands of people are on their feet, screaming with glee at the notion of turning their firearms on the federal government.

I am reminded of a phrase popularised by Richard Hofstadter: “the paranoid style in American politics”. Mr Ventura raises the crowd to further hoots with a few musings about whether Osama bin Laden really committed the September 11th terror attacks. He’s not saying he didn’t, but why hasn’t the federal government officially indicted him? He’s just asking.

We queue with a gaggle of other journalists to interview Mr Paul. The interviews before us have run long; they’re way behind schedule, and everyone is starting to get a little cranky. I admit that I’m unamused when three young Paulites from Kansas, only one affiliated with any media outlet (her university newspaper), are moved ahead of us.

When we finally see him, he’s energetic and has a gleam in his eye, despite interview after interview. I try to suss out what he plans to do with his support. The Republicans will not let him speak at the convention, and will not let his duly elected delegates speak up, either. If they do, they will be thrown out.

Does he still consider himself a Republican? To my surprise, he does not hesitate in saying yes: “I’m an old Republican.” His confidence that his movement will conquer his party, and his unwillingness to endorse either Mr McCain, Mr Obama or a third-party candidate like the Libertarian, Bob Barr, confuses me. What exactly is Mr Paul after? I’m not as sure as he is that he will conquer the Republicans.

Back in the hall, I file this as a song, “Ron Paul, Ron Paul,” blares out the loudspeakers to the tune of “New York, New York.”

I want to wake up to a country that doesn’t sleep

to fight for our rights

and civil liberties…

These neocon blues

Are melting away

We’ll make a brand new start of it

Vote Ron Paul

And let’s show we care

And shout it everywhere

It’s up to us to vote Rooon PAAAAAAAAAAULLLLLLL

ROOOON PAAUUUUUL!

Thursday

IT IS the lull between the warm-up—the first two days of the convention, which have seen little action—and the main events of the second half. Fred Thompson, once John McCain’s rival, fired up the crowd last night by lionising the nominee and attacking the Democrats. The man who could barely be bothered to stay awake for his own failed campaign was masterful. He worked the crowd in his signature, gravelly baritone like the trained actor that he is. But Joe Lieberman generated far less enthusiasm. The Republicans’ impatience to get started for real is palpable. So far, an underwhelming convention.

In this lull, I plan to take in an event sponsored by the New America Foundation, the think-tank of choice for Washington’s clever young things, on the future of the Middle East. Their event in Denver was great, and I’m eager to watch. This week, it would be different; the host has called me the night before to say that there have been a few cancellations, and could I sit on the discussion panel myself.

AFPFred Thompson works the crowd

I agreed, and when I get to the room I see why I’ve been called up. The room is only half-full, whereas the host, Steve Clemons, had filled a far bigger room in Denver. Do Republicans not care about the future of the Middle East? Unlikely, but it’s not obvious why there are so many fewer people here. Despite the small crowd, I take the stage and enjoy the next two hours of lively discussion on energy, Israel, Palestine and Iran.

Tonight is Sarah Palin’s big night: I know because the television chyrons read “SARAH PALIN’S BIG NIGHT” and “MAKE OR BREAK”. I think the Democrats have let themselves get out-framed on this one. When Mrs Palin, who after all is a governor, gives even a medium-competent speech full of Republican applause lines, the party will rightly hail it as a triumph.

But that is hours off, so I meander around the floor, warming up for the day’s events. The stage managers seem to have ditched last night’s blue-sky background with a single, tasteful waving flag on a flagpole, in favour of a backdrop screen that is one enormous, animated waving flag. It’s the size of a house, and it’s about to give me a seizure. Will it play on television?

It can’t be worse than the odd choice of a pale-yellow and black background for Barack Obama in Denver, which looked like a Japanese paper house. But this flag scares me. Gone are the days of mere rows of normal-sized flags. Some things just shouldn’t be the subject of too much creativity.

John Rich, a country star, rehearses his song “Raising McCain”, which he will play tonight (not bad for a political song, I must admit). And am I imagining things, or have the added “PROSPERITY” to the lettering around the arena? Last night I remember seeing only “COUNTRY FIRST”. Maybe an implicit response to Mr Obama’s complaint today that the Republicans are not talking about issues at all, and especially ignoring the economy.

I’m a little bored of interviewing delegates, to be honest. Unlike the Ron Paul people, few at either convention have said anything surprising. But I stand on the floor, pretending to check my Blackberry, to overhear a television crew interviewing a Colorado delegate. I want to see how they do it; maybe they know something about getting a more newsworthy response.

Only the reporter, a medium-sized blonde woman whose back is to me, seems to be antagonising the tall, gangly Coloradan. I can barely hear her questions, but he repeatedly gets annoyed: “Can we have a real discussion about politics?” On Mrs Palin: “No, I had heard of her. No, I didn’t Google her. I mean, I did Google her, but months ago. You want to check my computer?” I think, crikey, this is what they mean by the agenda-bearing liberal media? What on earth is she asking him to annoy him so?

Finally, when she gets the Coloradan to say “yeah, OK. She’s attractive. There. You happy?” I get it. The interview breaks up, and everyone moves off, and I see the reporter: Samantha Bee, from “The Daily Show”, a comedy news programme. You win another one, fake news.

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Friday

AS THE room rattles around me, my phone buzzes in my pocket. Text messages from several friends. “What do you think?” “What’s it like in there?” What is it like in there, as Sarah Palin sinks her teeth into the Democrats and Barack Obama, exhilarating a packed house?

I am standing near the Texas delegation, overflow delegates on every side and behind me, every one in a cowboy hat. The distinguished-looking fellow on my left has stylish, wavy grey hair, a blue blazer with gold buttons, and a lapel pin of cross coloured red, white and blue. The man to my right wears a sticker on his cowboy hat reading “Drill here, drill now, pay less.” I am standing, for a moment, in the most Republican spot in the universe. What’s it like in there?

They hate me.

AFP

Oh, not me personally. In fact, no one has so much as frowned at me this week. But on Wednesday night, I have to duck to avoid the flying red meat aimed at the media. Mike Huckabee, mild-mannered as usual, saves one of his only barbed comments of the night for “the elite media...for doing something that, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure could be done, and that’s unifying the Republican Party and all of America in support of Senator McCain and Governor Palin.” (Really? All of America?)

Rudy Giuliani says, “We the people—the citizens of the United States—get to decide our next president...not the media, not Hollywood celebrities, not anyone else.” (Are not celebrities and reporters, at least, people, and often Americans? My passport is as blue as yours, Rudy.)

And the star of the week, Sarah Palin, says “Here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.” I hadn’t realised the two were mutually exclusive, but the crowd goes wild, as I stand there with a big card reading “PRESS” dangling around my neck. I think I detect a theme.

In sport, you “work the ref”, complaining often and loudly, hoping that the referee will lean your way on the next call, to avoid hassle. Speaker after speaker has done that this week. Sometimes it works: reporters don’t want to be hated, and they might really feel like they got it wrong if a reaction is virulent enough.

After the 2004 election, in particular, I think members of the press felt a strong disconnect with much of America: on the second go round, surely nobody would vote for George Bush. And yet so many did that reporters, who after all are charged with knowing the world, felt like they may not really understand things as well as they thought. There’s been a renewed attempt to understand conservative middle America.

Now she has spoken for herself, far clearing the insanely low bar the Democrats set for her by acting as though she were an ignoramus. And in the lull before Mr McCain speaks (I am filing this before he takes the stage), there is a feeling of self-examination among the press. What’s off-limits and what isn’t? Ms Palin has featured her family prominently, but doesn’t want reporters covering her kids. Fair enough. Republicans have said that she is their kind of “feminist”, even if she isn’t to Democratic tastes. I can accept that.

But this week we have been abused again and again for asking basic political questions. Does she have ethical troubles back home? It’s not our fault that her mini-scandal involves her family. Is her support for abstinence-only sex-education particularly salient in light of her teenager’s pregnancy? Many people legitimately think so. It is wonderful that she had a Down syndrome child, but should that mean, as she thinks, a rape victim should not have access to abortion? The odd pick of Ms Palin has made the personal political and the political extremely, extremely personal. And we in the press have been made players in the story. The bad guys? Half the country seems to think so.

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