A Sporting Spectator at the GOP Convention
A correspondent gets more than he bargained for -- dancing condoms, killer whales -- and mac-and-cheese for everyone!
By MARC HERMAN
Photo by Joeff Davis(SAN DIEGO)
In the filing center of the Marriot Hotel, the main press support facility for the Republican National Convention, four televisions flanking the complimentary breakfast table blare a man doing impressions of Bob Dole. This is not the first impersonator to work the convention. Yesterday another one was in the press center, in person, shouting his best Ross Perot and George Bush into the phone, whining sharply above the din of the reporters sitting at rows of long white tables.
Yesterday's impersonator did live impressions for various radio outlets, repeating the same schtick every few minutes. Most people in the otherwise full room avoided him as best they could, as now they are ignoring his colleague on television. In the hallway outside, however, a very good Clinton impersonator recently met with eager reporters from the Children's Express news service, a media outlet staffed entirely by 8-to-12-year-olds. The kids, each wearing a red "Children's Express" T-shirt, asked the faux Clinton questions about the economy. A small group of other reporters watched the exchange and seemed impressed. It was impressive. The impersonator was meticulously accurate and completely believable, and the kids were patient and incisive. And the artifice -- child reporters questioning an actor posing as a politician -- was easy to lose track of given the context -- a mindless pep rally held in the name of seriousness.
Organizers of the convention seem to have kept the media initially off-balance, with a series of disorienting commercial ploys. First, reporters picking up security credentials the first day received a bag full of goodies -- a box of "Limited Convention Edition" Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, an unexplained roll of Glad bags, a white golf shirt with an investment firm's name embroidered on the breast, two packages of raisins and a $10 phone card bearing pictures of former Republican presidents ("I got U.S. Grant!" said someone outside the credentialing area, apparently pleased). The bags' contents were perhaps some sort of primer, an invitation to the (alleged liberal) press to enjoy the bounty available under the inclusive, prosperous Republican tent.
Then, the next morning, tipped off by a rumor that Eagle Forum president Phyllis Schlafly was hosting something called "A Whale of a Party" with Shamu the killer whale, some members of the press departed for Sea World. Due to a scheduling error they found nothing there but an otter show involving the loss and subsequent recovery of a magic coin. Next -- following the Sea World fiasco but before the convention's first serious evening session -- the impersonators started showing up, like some sort of trick competency test, as if to test the mettle of the journalists present. If anyone had approached them with a tape recorder, security men wielding butterfly nets would no doubt have escorted the dupe away.
By the time 5 o' clock came and ex-presidents were rumored present in the convention hall, it became irrelevant whether the politicians were real or not.
The balloons are already hanging in the rafters above the convention floor, in several fishnet bags about the size and shape of two Volkswagon Bugs laid end to end. Fifteen thousand press, 1990 delegates and an unclear number of guests and others had packed the convention floor for Powell's speech. There was little room to stand and nowhere to look but up, and there they were, the bags of red, white and blue balloons hovering like stormclouds. In four days they will drop with the announcement of Bob Dole's name and will settle in a layer on top of the cameras, Uncle Sam hats and big hair, bursting when they hit the lights and the edges of the boom microphones, and sliding over the crowd like fog. Everyone will jostle and crush each other like they did last night, when sign-waving delegates leapt to their feet at Powell's arrival and nearly killed themselves. The crowd knocked an AP photographer dangerously close to former Reagan advisor Howard Baker's lap, cut the oxygen supply to levels inappropriate for the altitude and raised a general threat of inadvertant violence in the hall. I imagined swimming through the balloons with these people, which was a pleasant enough thought until I considered the effect that a few hundred small, popping explosions might have on the nerves of our friends in the secret service.
The speech ran longer than my alloted time on the floor. Reporters not affiliated with large networks or extremely old newspapers are allowed only 30 minutes on the floor at a time, then must cede their pass to another reporter or renew it if there is no one waiting. Toward the end of Powell's speech, it was time for me to return to home base or be benched by the Credential Goddess, who had already branded an otherwise influential reporter from a scary east coast magazine with NO ACCESS FOR THE NIGHT for returning one of the brown cards late. Powell finished his speech as I began to panic in the general direction of Baker. I decided to stay. The speech was pat moderate Republican stuff, though Baker was calling it the best speech he'd ever seen at a political convention. Then it ended and there was an announcement of recess, at which point, of course, everyone left very fast. I got my credential back in time to the Goddess, who smiled benevolently.
Today the rumors say that the initial shock of the convention will wear off, and the delegates' enthusiasm will be swathed in enough yards of bunting to render the site unrecognizable as a campaign. The three months of electoral negativity and bile likely to follow this convention will be not spoken of today or for the next week. A common dislike of liberalism and press photographers will unite the thousands of people here, not as partisans, but as Americans of a particular America. Among the expected public oddities of such a convention -- the pro-prostitution witch/possible drag queen strutting around; the guy in a condom suit occasionally dancing in front of the security gate; the near-arrest of flower industry spokesperson Buzz the Bee by Marriott security for unauthorized distribution of carnations -- the overall theme is acceptance.
There is a sense of collective security in the convention so far, of cultural encapsulation, where Republican Glad bags make sense. If they don't, it doesn't matter because the people in the hall are -- if only because you need a credential to get in and the only non-Republicans admitted are supposed to be observing objectively -- inarguably right. Today there will be a mac-and-cheese-eating contest for young Republicans in a park near the hall. Here, it makes sense. There is a press release announcing it, and I intend to be there.
Marc Herman is a political writer and commentator based Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor of Might magazine. This is the first of a two-part series. The second will run in Salon on Friday.