Thursday, July 29, 2004

Six PM

So, in the morning, we went over to the California delegation’s breakfast and had Jesse Jackson with my scrambled eggs and bacon, as I slurped down my final cup of coffee, I heard Bill Press flog his book. It was all rather forgettable.

Following that I went over to the Sheraton and wandered around there for a while and talked to some people . There’s a subdued atmosphere around the delegate areas of the hotels. People are tired and having gotten to bed at one in the morning or later, are definitely groggy. There was no free lunch today. A person lamented the food and drink was far less than in recent years, to which I concurred. So I went to Burger King and got a hamburger while preparing to visit the free speech cage, which is where the protesters, mostly commies of right wing religious fanatics, can scream to their hearts content.

The damn thing was near empty! Oh, there were a few people there, mostly the aforementioned, but there was one guy singing the greatest hits of Credence Clearwater Revival off-key,a couple of volunteers told me he had been there the past two days and had driven a lot of other people away with his earsplitting tones. He did the thing to me as well. I fled across the river to Cambridge, where a group called Take Back America was having a conference.

The conference was state of the art, where the speakers used computer generated visual aids to explain how all the "Progressive" 547 advocacy groups now are cooperating with each other when it comes to research materials and polling and the like. They’re extremely optimistic with the current situation as there’s a genuine possibility that a sweep resembling 1994 will get Congress back in Democratic hands. It should have been interesting, but I fell asleep a number of times. But that all changed when Jesse Jackson came into the room. This was going to be my third encounter with the reverend Jackson, and would prove to be the most interesting. He started slow, subdued, almost plodding, explaining that there were things he couldn’t say the previous night because it was not his place to rock the boat. The convention wasn’t his parade.

He discussed history. He went on about how the civil rights movement didn’t come from Eisonhower on down but from Martin Luther King on up. He discussed voting trends and anaylized what they meant. I.e. the Democratic party didn’t need white men but needed to do more to register Blacks in the southland.

His voice never actually reached the screeching heights that he’s famous for, but got up to a certain pitch and stayed there for the better part of an hour. He was mesmerizing. Why he hadn’t gotten anywhere near that in the morning or the previous night was probably due to the audience. There were few who weren’t people of color here. When he left, so did I.

There was a delegates shuttle bus outside the hotel and we took a circuitous route around Cambridge and Charlestown before finally getting to the Fleet center. We passed the other side of the free speech cage. There were more people there now, and a recording of people singing "We Shall Overcome." They were very angry that we didn’t invite them in to disrupt the proceedings.

I ate dinner at the press lounge and someone told me something I didn’t quite believe. Police and National Guards in full battle armor had confronted protesters. He wasn’t right, but he wasn’t exactly wrong either. Outside there were a couple of hundred cops and guardsmen who was ready for anything. I guess it was because Kerry was actually going to be in the building and Osama might think he’d be lucky this time. I’m not sure.

The entire House women’s caucus shows up on the podium. They’re just killing time before they nominate Edwards and he and Kerry speak. I’m looking forward to that, but I’ll be glad when this is over….

Thursday, 7:44 AM

At the end of the night, the vote was finally tallied: 4,255 votes for Kerry and 37 votes for Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

But before that moment, and before I went down to the hall, I was beginning to unplug my trusty laptop and getting ready to move out, when a journalist began yelling "That’s MY seat." Apparently, she had been sitting there before I was, and had left to go on the floor about an hour and a half before, expecting the empty seat to remain so in the chaos that was the press filing room.

I didn’t argue. After all, I was heading to the floor myself just then and she could have the seat, but the look in her eyes was full of contempt one who doesn’t follow orders fast enough, or doesn’t see the invisible sign saying "MINE!" That’s what markers are for.

So I got out of the Filing room and went out into the hall and up the escalator to the press area on the floor where those of us with dark green tickets were allowed to go. When I got there I was stopped.

"You can’t go in. Only those with the color tickets shown over there on the wall may enter!"
"I’ve got one of those, see?"
"We’ve just changed the rules five minutes ago."
"What?!?!?!?!"

He told me to stop blocking the hallway. I refused. We argued about my credentials and my right to be there. He sent a flunky to check me out with the Congressional press gallery people. I checked out. He reluctantly let me in. Then, milliseconds later, another guy stops me.

"Can’t you HEAR? He says…." says he.
"He’s been cleared" says his boss.

I resist the urge to stick out my tongue at them as I walked down to the press area on the floor.

I had a great view right next to the Idaho delegation. Well, of the back of everyone’s head at least. But I tried to focus my eyes at the view of the hall. This was indeed a strange sight. I’ve seen it before countless times in the last few days, hell a couple of hours earlier I’d been down there myself, but there was a strange wonder I hadn’t felt before.

A number of governors made some speeches. So did Rev. Al Sharpton, then came a parade of retired generals all three- and four-star types, and all of them spitting contempt at their former commander-in-chief. Security grabbed a vice-chairwoman of the California Green party who was trying to drown out some of the speakers.

Then came Edwards’ oldest daughter, who introduced her mother, who in tern introduced her husband, who gives a version of his standard stump speech, a jazzed up version which jazzes everybody up. My oringinal impression was right: Dan Quayle with brains.

Then came the actual voting. The traditional nominating speech for Kerry was dispensed with. Clinton’s speech for Dukakis back in ’88 is still remembered.

When I heard some votes for Kucinich, I realized my reporting was indeed on the mark and I decided to leave for home. But then something strange happened.

A beautiful girl came up to me and asked if I could by her some tickets to the Grateful Dead concert. I knew that it was time to get my ass out of the hall….

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Later that same day....

Two PM

Bad news: In order to keep any problems from appearing on national television, the balloting doesn’t start until the eleven at night. Not good at all, as the balloting won’t end until something like two. What’s the fun in that?

I had breakfast courtesy of Colorado, lunch courtesy of the Housing lobby, and a couple of snacks courtesy of I dunno. I wasn’t too thrilled with the speeches down at the Sheritan, where the official news conference told us that the actual balloting would take place very close to midnight, the balloting not being ratings worthy for some reason. Lots of people were selling stuff, I started thinking that I may not last the week…

Six PM

Okay, here I am at the press lounge and I discover that the stuff they’re serving is something I’m allergic too. SHIT! But this isn’t all bad, as I was able to get a floor pass and actually got within a few feet of the podium while our own Senator Shumer gave a speech about how wonderful John Kerry was and all that other rot. I discovered that, yes indeed all the Kucinich delegates were going to vote for their man and that a couple of the states had forbidden them to record their vote for anything but Kerry or "Present." So we could be pretty sure that he’s going to get at least fifty votes with a couple of votes here or there for somebody else.

That’s if. Nobody’s going to watch except those few hardened political junkies.

The view from the floor is a sight to behold. There’s very little room to manouver as the space between the rows of folding chairs is only about a foot or two. The podium is about a half a dozen feet off the ground and everyone gets a decent view of the proceedings, even those up in the back in the spectators section. Our own New York delegation is up there. The midwest seems to have the best seats for some reason. Getting an hour’s worth of floortime was actually easier than I expected. That’s because this is the first time in five of these things after a quarter century of trying I didn’t have to crash.

The lounge is serving hot dogs. So much for dinner…..

Seven PM

Not much has happened since dinner. The head of College Democrats spoke and a singer with no talent was singing something called "If I was President." I was totally horrid. It's no wonder that the three broadcast networks won't cover this yet. Jesse Jackson is speaking. He's old and tired now, with dyed hair. He still has some of the old fire within him,who gave what seemed to be a recitation of patriotic songs and nursery rhymes. Why he’s losing it. In this way I’ve no real idea. Then someone else speaks and spews out mush and people in the press area inside the arena begin to wonder why these things still go on, what with the balloting taking place around midnight and all.

So here we think of Jerry Springer giving his comedy routine near my hotel tonight.

They could have done things the congressional way and started in the early afternoon and gotten the speeches and balloting done by the end of prime time, but nooooooooooo….no wonder Bush is still even with Kerry in the polls!

Dennis Kucinich, of whom much has been written here, takes the podium and shows why he's never going to get anywhere beyond the fifty or so votes he's going to get tonight. He's well and truly awful. Yeech!!!! I'm glad I voted for Edwards.

Wednesday Eight Ay-Em

Kennedy, Dean and Obama all gave great speeches, and the last of them has a great future ahead of him. Dean I’m not so sure of….

But now’s a good time as any to describe the layout of the Fleet center. The FC is a sports arena. Here the Boston Celtics and other indoor teams play to rapt crowds when the place is not taken over by bigass pop and rock bands. (The last act to play before the Democrats took over was probably Britney Spears, but I’m not sure.) The lobby is full of concession stands, and you head up the escalator to the second floor, where the expensive seats are and there are more concession stands, and a full-scale restaurant here and there, this is rated the third floor for some reason. The fourth floor is much the same, and there are hawkers selling political buttons and giving away Tee shirts in exchange for signing up for Visa carts. The conventions are "rule-free zones" remember and corporations can spend as much money here as they damn well please. So they do.

Above that are two floors of skyboxes. The fifth is for the VVVIPs so they can watch and drink in comfort, there was a major party blocking the way to what might be my assigned seat, (which I have yet to sit down in) and I had to go up to the sixth floor, which is where all the networks have their viewing booths. I nearly got into the Al-Jezeera booth, as a Pakistani journalist invited me along to find out what their reaction was to having their annex van in the parking lot towed. I don’t think that got much play as Al-Jezeera isn’t all that popular around here, but still….

Above that is the cheap seats. Anyone with a light green ticket can get in…which reminds me….the ticket color code. There’s six colors ranking the attendees and governing where they could go within the forbidden zone:

Yellow: This is the lowest. You can get within the zone but not in the FC, that’s the lowest and is given to assistants and drivers and the like.

Light Green: This is given to guests and medium-level journalists. This gets you in the hall, but only the halls behind the floor and the nosebleed seats on the seventh floor.

Dark Green:This is given to "honored guests" and upper-level journalists. This gets you everywhere but the major parties and the floor. I’ve got one of these, it’s way cool, but I can’t get to the free food they give the bigwigs…

They get purple.

Then comes the coveted Red floorpass. This is given to delegates and alternates, and those journalists from companies big enough to warrant going on the floor, there’s a "lending library" of sorts, where you can borrow one for an hour or so. I still haven’t found where I can get mine.

Each pass is the red and light green passes are dated for one day, that means you have to go and get a new one from the DNCC office every morning.

Wednesday Eight Ay-Em

Kennedy, Dean and Obama all gave great speeches, and the last of them has a great future ahead of him. Dean I’m not so sure of….

But now’s a good time as any to describe the layout of the Fleet center. The FC is a sports arena. Here the Boston Celtics and other indoor teams play to rapt crowds when the place is not taken over by bigass pop and rock bands. (The last act to play before the Democrats took over was probably Britney Spears, but I’m not sure.) The lobby is full of concession stands, and you head up the escalator to the second floor, where the expensive seats are and there are more concession stands, and a full-scale restaurant here and there, this is rated the third floor for some reason. The fourth floor is much the same, and there are hawkers selling political buttons and giving away Tee shirts in exchange for signing up for Visa carts. The conventions are "rule-free zones" remember and corporations can spend as much money here as they damn well please. So they do.

Above that are two floors of skyboxes. The fifth is for the VVVIPs so they can watch and drink in comfort, there was a major party blocking the way to what might be my assigned seat, (which I have yet to sit down in) and I had to go up to the sixth floor, which is where all the networks have their viewing booths. I nearly got into the Al-Jezeera booth, as a Pakistani journalist invited me along to find out what their reaction was to having their annex van in the parking lot towed. I don’t think that got much play as Al-Jezeera isn’t all that popular around here, but still….

Above that is the cheap seats. Anyone with a light green ticket can get in…which reminds me….the ticket color code. There’s six colors ranking the attendees and governing where they could go within the forbidden zone:

Yellow: This is the lowest. You can get within the zone but not in the FC, that’s the lowest and is given to assistants and drivers and the like.

Light Green: This is given to guests and medium-level journalists. This gets you in the hall, but only the halls behind the floor and the nosebleed seats on the seventh floor.

Dark Green:This is given to "honored guests" and upper-level journalists. This gets you everywhere but the major parties and the floor. I’ve got one of these, it’s way cool, but I can’t get to the free food they give the bigwigs…

They get purple.

Then comes the coveted Red floorpass. This is given to delegates and alternates, and those journalists from companies big enough to warrant going on the floor, there’s a "lending library" of sorts, where you can borrow one for an hour or so. I still haven’t found where I can get mine.

Each pass is the red and light green passes are dated for one day, that means you have to go and get a new one from the DNCC office every morning.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

TUESDAY 7:45 PM

I spent dinner with another journalist discussing the middle east.

It seems that even some of the most seemingly intelligent people cannot fathom what the damn thing’s about and it gets me mad sometimes, but after a long discussion about that and the morality of near beer, I went down to the Fleet center to find out what the state of the race for tomorrow is.

Now as we political junkies all know, this was the state of affairs on Saturday:

Kerry 2713
Edwards 549
Dean 120
Clark 68
Kucinich 63
Sharpton 20

Now all the other candidates have released their delegates to whomever they wish to vote for, according to a delegate from Wisconsin, Dean told his people he wanted ALL his people to vote for Kerry in order to show unity and tell the Republicans he means business. The scuttlebut is that Dean is probably going to get about fifteen votes anywy, and maybe a few for Sharpton and someone else. Clark wants a cabinet job, so nobody's going to vote for him. Kucinich said something similier to Dean, but they voted unanimously to stay with their guy in the balloting, which is way cool. The only problem is that the people running the convention don’t want a divided result and have told the Kucinich people that their votes are going to be recorded as "present" instead. This is against the rules and we might not know what’s going to happen. An embarrassing walkout? Capitulation? Stay tuned folks, this may be the only interesting thing we might see between now and Edwards’ acceptance speech tomorrow night, although Howard Dean and keynoter Barack Obama, whom I heard speak this afternoon. He’s pretty good, actually, but more on that later….The tribute to Ted Kennedy starts in about twenty minutes, and he's gives good speech.

Tuesday four PM

So here we are in the beginning of the late afternoon, and we didn't do all that much, except go to the league of conservation voters rally next to the aquarium and listen to the convention's keynote speaker, who's going to be elected Senator from Illinois this November, as the ex-husband of Star Trek's seven of nine had to drop out of the race for weird sexual reasons that really had nothing to do with him.

This is the off-night, for there isn't any real business to attend to and the speeches are going to be mostly by various Kennedys, as this IS Boston and they sort of own the state. Teddy K. is the Strom Thurmond of the left, he'll probably leave office in 2025 or something like that.

In the meantime, the lines have gotten alot shorter as nobody's actually going to show up until much lstter tonight. I should have taken in a movie or that alternative energy cruise....

Tuesday, Eight fifteen Aay-EM

Tuedsay, eight AM

For some reason there’s a strong free wai fi signal at my hotel this morning. Good I don’t have to wait until nine and pay three bucks for a cup of coffee.

Last night they had the first big four speakers, two and a half presidents and a first lady. The half, of course, was former President-elect Al Gore, who gave a brilliant talk of the kind that was sorely lacking during the 2000 campaign This was inpireing, funny and at times, dramatic. The references to the fact that he actually WON the last election were humorous and poignant. Then he gave Tipper a big wet French Kiss. I guess it’s now his trademark of something….he still would have made a good prexy.

Jimmy Carter was never that good a speaker. His speech was a workmanlike affair, with a few zingers here and there, but he focused on foreign policy, a subject he had best avoided despite his Nobel Peace Prize™. He got a good reception, and apparently has been officially forgiven for screwing up the country and the world during his won pathetic term in the late ‘70s.

But the main attraction was Bubba. Yeah, there were several minor speakers such as Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Barbara Mikulsky (sic) of Maryland and they did rather well (as did Hillery’s introduction of her husband), but William Jefferson (Blythe) Clinton is the MASTER. He began with a joke, mentioning his phenominal money raising efforts in his post presidency, mockingly thanking President Dubya for HIS tax cut before bearing his fangs and letting go the sword of sarcasm with a fury rarley seen in an ex-President. It was brutal and violent and the crowd loved it. I was in the "next to, but not actually on the floor" press section, and got to see the whole thing from the side. Seeing the thing in real life is soooooooooooooo different from seeing it on the tube.

Now for free food. I’ve figured out what the deal is with getting in to the convention…waiting half an hour or more, then going through the metal detectors and being forced to turn on my machine [I guess it looks like a bomb or something], so I can go to more lunch receptions.

Monday, July 26, 2004

Monday evening.

TWO PM

Okay, instead of the DC statehood thing, I went to the press tent, where after about twenty minutes waiting on line, we managed to get into the "temple precincts" where I found a wai fi hotspot and went around looking at the various suites. There are two floors here, the people inside the various rooms aren’t that friendly, excpet for the editor of the New York Observer, who let me use his plug to replenish my battery’s juice. The schedule for the convention itself today is housekeeping and speeches by presidents.

I lent a major paper my machine and they let me put in some more juice in it. The press tent is pretty large. It has two floors and pretty much every major news organization has a booth. The free food starts at three PM. It’s too late to go to the reception. Oh well, I’ll know what to do next time….

Three-Thirty PM

Right now I’m on the so-called "Boggers Boulevard, which is a bunch of chairs attached to electrical plugs. Unfortunately, the wai fi connection sucks and not everybody could get on. Error they say. The festivities officially begin with a children’s choir singing Woody Guthrie’s "This Land is Your Land," which doesn’t sound quite right when done by such a group. It sounds better by an old guy with a gravelly voice accompanying himself on a busted guitar. The floor begins to fill up less than half a dozen delegations are on the floor and someone is practicing gaveling in the convention, but it doesn’t seem to be actually doing anything worthwhile. The others on the blvd. are basically playing with their equipment and surfing the net. I’m going to try to find a better place to blog, there’s going to be someplace where I could get better reception.

The hall looks pretty much like one remembers from previous years, the podium is off to one side, there’s a giant TV screen in the back and a whole bunch of others behind the band and some other stuff I need a pair of binoculars to see. MTV’s cameraman photographed us for a bit and we had a conversation. The VIP press lounge is open, I think I’d better go get some grub.

A Quarter tow Six:

The big lounge is kind’a good. They had sausages and soda, and someone said beer was being served but I didn’t see any.

Six Thirty

Getting the wai fi working properly was impossible, so I went back to the Fleet center where I went to the press area neet the podium, and right now the CEO of the convention corporation is making a speech about how wonderful everything is. The Platform was passed without debate and so much for that long tradition: The platform fight. Those were brilliant battles over ideology. Now all there is is self-congratulation and the usual platitudes. The next guy is talking about education and how Kerry and Edwards know that affordable health care and educaion are good things and Bush and Cheney want everyone to be sick and ignorant.

The head of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the right of the Republican party’s mortal enemy, .speaks and is in fact terrible as a speaker. But she’s right in most of what she says, but that’s ‘cause I’m not Conservative. The delegates are here in full force and the seats are mostly full, although you can’t really be sure, because everyone’s waling around and only about half are sitting down.

The nice people at Verison just gave me a free ethernet cable. So I'm in the press center. Wai fi is like television forty years ago, you have to hunt everywhere for a good signel and then it goes away in a flash! Right now we're waiting for the four biggies to make their appearence, Gore, Carter and the two Clintons....they didn't invite me to the blogger breakfast this morning. So I didn't get to meet Howard Dean. Bummer. Some of the broadcast networks are starting their coverage of the convention so, the interested viewer will get a better view than I will to some extent.

two PM

Okay, instead of the DC statehood thing, I went to the press tent, where after about twenty minutes waiting on line, we managed to get into the "temple precincts" where I found a wai fi hotspot and went around looking at the various suites. There are two floors here, the people inside the various rooms aren’t that friendly, excpet for the editor of the New York Observer, who let me use his plug to replenish my battery’s juice. The schedule for the convention itself today is housekeeping and speeches by presidents.

I lent a major paper my machine and they let me put in some more juice in it. The press tent is pretty large. It has two floors and pretty much every major news organization has a booth. The free food starts at three PM. It’s too late to go to the reception. Oh well, I’ll know what to do next time…..

Monday afternoon, one pee'yem

I'm IN!!!!!!!!! Yes, I'm in the press tent and will soon be in the hall. As you can see, I"ve managed to find a really powerful wai fi signel. The line was long and I should have gone to a couple of the receptions first, but it's still possible. So now to the VIP press lounge and a place to find more juice for my laptop

Monday morning

Monday, a quarter of eight in the morning.

So, the first thing on the list for yesterday was the protests, International ANSWER, the highly successful protest wing of the Stalinist Worker’s World Party, was having a march from the Boston Common to the entrance to the forbidden zone. About three hundred people showed up, mostly of the lunatic fringe of the movement, all of whom were giving out, or more usually selling, flyers and leaflets. They almost outnumbered the spectators. The only reasonably sane people there were PeTA who aren’t, actually, and some guy who was promoting a woodchuck for President, people having screwed up for so long.

Not being able to take it any longer, I took a walk around the common. It seems that as a deterrent to terrorism, the city government had decided to remove all the garbage bins. True, littering is preferable to blowing people up, but having to carry my detritus around was a bit annoying.

So, being mostly fed up with the extreme left, I decided to bring things down a notch, by going to see Peter Camajo, the "Watermelon" [green on the outside red on the inside] who is currently Reform/Independent candidate for Vice President. This was down at UMass, which was still hosting the Commie-Fest™ I’d attended the previous day. I figured that a good political speech would get me in the right mood for the receptions later that day.

Camajo stood out. He was the only person in the entire room wearing a suit. He went into his spiel with gusto. The message was a simple one: There was no real difference between Kerry and Bush and therefore people should vote for the person they most agree with. According to him, Kerry was far worse than Bush, both were tools of the evil international capitalist conspiracy, and were far more antidemocratic than the Republicans as they didn’t want to let the Nader-Camajo ticket on the ballot and were trying to do all they could to actively sabotage the efforts, clearly , the man was pissed off.

This was bile that was carefully aimed. He went on about the San Francisco mayoral race from last year when the Green candidate nearly won, and went on and on as to how the Democratic candidate "cheated" by getting help from the national party and getting all the bigwigs to speak and soliciting absentee ballots. As to the charge that the GOP was financing the Nader campaign, he said: "We’ll be happy to give back every cent we got from the Republicans, provided the Kerry campaign does the same thing."

That wasn’t going to wash.


Then he took questions, mostly hostile ones from people to the left of him, this was Commie-Fest™ after all, and it seemed he wasn’t pure enough. But the crowd itself was mostly supportive. Since it took so long, getting back for the 56 state/territorial receptions became problematic. I missed California, and was limited to just going to the Pennsylvania and New Jersey ones. The former was at the State Capitol building and was hor’derves and liquor, and features Mrs. Kerry thanking the state for her first husband’s political career, The crowd went wild. Then I tried to find the Newsweek reception, but for security reasons, they gave out the wrong time to the press. So I went down to Feniel hall mall and the concert. The place had ten times the people as the early afternoon protest march and featured, among others, the Ojs and the Boston Pops. Really cool.

Finally, we went to the New Jersey reception which featured a really decent buffet. I why I’m here, after all.

Today’s schedule is first: The California breakfast, followed by the noon DC statehood reception for lunch, some other thing for high tea, and following that he head over to the Fleet center for the real thing….

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Sunday, parts one and two

Sunday morning, seven AM.

Yesterday was actually quite busy after I got out of the internet café. The Boston Social Forum, i.e. Commie-fest ‘04™ was particularly so. What a freak show! We had practically every flavor of Marxist there is, from the Orthodox Commies of the Official Communist Party to half a dozen versions of Trotskyites to Pro-Palestinian bigots to the Fidel fan club. It’s quite amazing, really. I didn’t actually get to any of the speeches or workshops, but talking to people in the hallways and at the informational tables, which included some sane people like the ACLU and Nation magazine [which actually made a profit this year for the first time in over a century [!]

The one thing that I missed which I wished I had actually seen was at one workshop where Michael Lerner, editor of touchie-feelie "Tikkun" magazine, was heckled by an antijewish activist from Buffalo, NY and called a racist for his insistence that the Jewish population of Israel be permitted to remain there. I discovered this by listening into a argument by the person in question and a couple of others. The terms "racist" and "genocide" came out of her mouth with reckless abandon and the other two gave as good as they got, although one of them was an anarchist. When I tried to ask a question of two, I was told to shut up.

That happens a lot at these things.

You could tell a fanatic when a person at one of these tables tells you: "I’m not here to debate." Then what the hell are they there for, then?…Okay, to sell pamphlets and buttons, but I was told the same thing by people setting up for a workshop for crissake.

There weren’t only ultra-leftie whackoes selling paper products, there was street theater, two. A guy in a mountain goat suit fighting some guys dressed as mountaineers and people claiming to be bees protesting free trade in Central America. That was kind of fun, and there were several people there who were indeed quite sane. I guess they had no where else to flog their causes.

One group there I didn’t expect to see was the Kucinich campaign. The vegan congressman from Ohio was actually in the room, and I argued with one of his delegates [the con’s parties and such hadn’t started yet so there wasn’t anywhere to go yet], that they should vote for the guy on the first and only ballot. This is a TV show after all and a bit of scattered voting here and there would liven things up. But that may or may not happen.

But the afternoon began to fade into evening there was other things to do. The official media welcoming party at the Boston Convention Center was approaching!!!

This is the reason I spent four hours on the bus for. Food glorious food! Allegedly from the best restaurants in town. Great!

The Boston Convention Center is in South Boston, which isn’t actually south, but east, just across the bridge from the South station. It’s a bit of a walk, actually, and I would have taken the free shuttle bus if I could have found the damn thing. Regardless, when I got there, I was mightily impressed. The place is huge. In the front there was a red carpet where local celebrates would enter from rented limousines. Inside, Circ de Solel was doing wheelies one ropes suspended from the ceiling. It was all very nice but it was difficult to see when one is looking for the buffets, of which there were about half a dozen. That’s why we were there after all.

We begin with a salad, then we return for another round then another, going from tacos to roast beef to steamed mussels with smoked onion grits, followed by oriental chicken with brown rice, washed down with a beer, with a short rest and conversation, we go for the her crushed pork loins with potato al gratin and follow that with Cavoletti Pomadoro before going back to get more roast beef.

All this before we discover the wonder of the chocolate fountain [yeah, that’s Exactly what it was]. My stomach was quite distended, I decided to finally head home.

In our next episode we’ll go on a quest to find the Copley hotel, where we get our credentials, and go back to Commie-Fest™, where we will hear a speech by Peter Camajo, Ralph Nader’s Trotskyite running-mate…

11:30 AM

It wasn’t much of a quest, after all. I was surprised how easy it was to get everything I needed. The big news is that I’ve got a pass to the VIP food lounge, the most valuable thing in the entire convention. I got one in 1992 and there was free food and drink all day and all night. What could be better than that? Now to find free wireless internet.

11:45

I found a hotspot! Next update this afternoon, when I'll talk about Camajo and the protests on the common

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Day one

The Chinatown bus left approximately fifteen minutes late, and took almost four hours, which is pretty good time if you think about it. I then took the "T" as they call the subway, here to my hotel and unpacked. I know this isn't as interesting as it should be, but wait! We're getting to the good stuff later.

Our first order of business is to take the T down to UMass and what's called the Boston Social Forum, convergence of lefties and old-time commies [speaker Angela Davis was the party's VP nominee at least twice] and it should be kind'a interesting. More later.

Friday, July 23, 2004

The tale of the day before...

Okay, tomarrow we actually head off to Boston, Mass and start this shindig. I've already have got a list of parties and my reservations have been made ages ago.

I'm not sure about what the deal is with wi-fi and I'm shocked that the version at Starbucks costs seven bucks an hour. This is basically a test so perhaps we'll get it right this time.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Convention Trivia:

The first official political Convention: Anti-Masonic party, 1831

The first Major Party con: The Democrats 1832, which nominated Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Most chaotic inside:

The Democrats:1924, which went on for two and a half weeks and a hundred and three ballots.

The Republicans: 1920, which went ten ballots and had to resort to the famous "smoke filled room." Also, the delegates revolted and the designated VP candidate was canned in favor of Calvin Coolidge, who was quite surprised with the whole deal.

Most chaotic outside: The Democrats 1968, the riots made history.

Republicans 1972. The riots, which were almost as bad, and were not televised.

Least chaotic: Republicans 1988, no opposition allowed, no riots outside

Last time a convention went past the first ballot for anything:

The Democrats 1956,
Adlai Stevenson declared the second spot open and Estes Kefauver beat John F. Kennedy after the latter nearly won on the second ballot.

The Republicans 1952,
When the second ballot was about to begin, the delegates from the several states demanded to retroactively change their votes to Eisonhower, who was ten votes short of a majority at the end of the first.

Last Time there was a roll-call vote for Vice-President:

The Democrats: 1980, when the Kennedy people scattered their votes among dozens of people, the count was never completed and Fritz Mondale was declared nominated by acclamation sometime in the afternoon.

The Republicans 1984, when Jack Kemp and Jeane Kirkpatrick got one vote each.

Meanest act at a convention in the last twelve years:

Republicans: In 1992, New Hampshire was not allowed to vote as many of the delegates were pledged to vote for Pat Buchanan.

Democrats: When the Bill Bradley delegates were told they couldn’t vote for him after the candidate withdrew from the race in 2000. They voted for Gore.

Meanest act at a convention PERIOD:

In 1976, the Carter people kicked all the low-level volunteers from the nomination party, including me.

Last time a nominee refused the nomination:

Frank Lowden refused to become Calvin Coolidge’s running mate and was replaced by Charles Dawes. The debacle of 1972, when a dozen or so candidates refused George McGovern’s offer of vice presidency, doesn’t count as Lowden was actually nominated and they were not.

The Coolest convention of all time:

The 1940 Republican convention, which was wide open and Wendell Willkie came out of nowhere to take it on the sixth ballot. A bunch of kids took over the whole thing and had FDR not been the Democratic nominee, they would have gone all the way.

For the Democrats, it’s a tie between 1976, which went perfectly on the floor, and 1992, where I had a real blast.1980 was way cool too, but for different reasons.

The UNcoolest convention of all time:

A tie between the Republicans in 1964 and 1992. The former was mean and chaotic and the latter was mean and fascistic. Goldwater did better than Bush, Sr. HA!!!

The last time Space Aliens had a major impact on a nomination:

In 1944, Vice President Henry A. Wallace was going on to the leadership of the Democratic party about the "Ascended White Masters of the Himalayas" This was the last straw and they convinced President Roosevelt to allow them to replace him with Sen. Harry S Truman of Missouri.

Last time someone was nominated as a joke:

William Wheeler, a nonentity from upstate New York got the second spot when some people in his delegation decided to put his name into nomination as a lark. He was Vice President of the United States from 1877 to 1881.

William E. Miller got the 1964 veep nod because Barry Goldwater thought he "drove LBJ nuts," which may have been a joke, too.

Most obscure major ticket:

The Democrats nominated Alton B.Parker, chief judge of the NY court of Appeals for President in 1904 because nobody else wanted it. His running mate Henry Davis, was expected to pay for the campaign. He didn’t.

Last time brothers got votes for president at the same convention:

Democrats: William Jennings Bryan and his brother Charley, 1924.

Republicans: Nelson and Winthrop Rockefeller, 1968.

Brothers who were actually nominated:

William Jennings Bryan (president 1896, 1900, and 1908) and his brother Charley (VP 1924)

Monday, July 19, 2004

What not to look for in a political convention:

In the years since the McGovern commission reforms in 1971, the nature of the political conventions have markedly changed. What goes on the floor is no longer fun for the television viewer, as chaos and hatred are scripted out. This is not a good thing.

Let’s go back in time, say, slightly more than half a century…The year is 1952, for the only time in history, an incumbent president, Harry S Truman, physically lost the New Hampshire primary and was forced to withdraw. He was beaten by Senator Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn), who went on to sweep the primaries, of which there were all of twelve. Kefauver, or as Truman called him, Cow-fever, had enough to come in first but not enough to actually win, as the other forty delegations were controlled by the party machinery, and most of them were friendly to Truman, who hated Kefauver’s guts.

The leading anti-Kefauver candidate was Vice President Alben Barkely, who was forced from the race as he was too old, 78 or something.. Truman, Elenor Roosevelt, and a few other bosses preferred Adlai E. Stevenson the Second, the governor of Illinois , and it took three ballots to get enough support from the favorite sons and the like to get Stevenson the nomination.

Favorite sons? Third ballots? This sounds like ancient history(Come to think of it, it kind of is, although the Green convention went to a second ballot this very year, but that wasn’t even televised on C-span)...

So what's a "favorite son?" That was when delegates were selected by political clubs, and many a state decided to keep it’s options open for the first ballot by pledging itself to a local politico until one of the leaders gave a good enough bribe…y’know, PORK.

Well, each and every favorite son would get a nominating speech and a seconding speech, and then they’d do a demonstration dance. In 1952 there were eight of them.

It was all in good fun, but Richard Milhous Nixon didn’t like them very much. In 1968, he came into the convention with 590 pledged delegates, and the majority of the delegates supported favorite sons, of whom there were seven. I remember as a little kid screaming "Hiram Fong!!!" while watching the festivities on TV (Fong was senator from Hawaii and got 14 votes)

Nixon won on the first ballot with a majority of barely a hundred votes, Everybody immediately fell in line, but Nixon was pissed. In 1972, things would change.

Now the McGovern commission’s report went the state legislatures and the current system was born. President Nixon’s campaign had to technically start from scratch, of course, and congressmen, Pete McCloskey of California and John Ashbrook of somewhere else decided to challenge Tricky Dickie in the primaries. They, of course got creamed, but the McGovern rules applied in some states and McCloskey got a single delegate.

When the Republicans convened, there was horror at the prospect of someone making a speech nominating McCloskey and in the process criticizing Nixon’s policy on Vietnam’s war. So they passed a rule stating that in order to be nominated, a candidate needed a petition with the signatures of a majority of FIVE delegations.

Four years later, two candidates, President Gerald Ford and former Governor Ronald Reagan, had enough votes to get their names in nomination…the Republicans also changed the rules for delegate allocation starting in 1980. That was the end of the favorite son candidacy. Much entertainment was lost.

Another thing that’s not going to happen are credential fights. In days of yore, say 1952, different clubs would send different people to the same seats at the conventions and the convention at large would have to decide whom to let in.

The Republicans that year had a close one. They knew that they had a winner in General "Ike" Eisonhower, but Senator Robert Taft, the hyper-conservative senator from Ohio had more delegates, so the Ike campaign did a deal with the California delegation and just enough Taft delegates were thrown out in order to get Ike the nomination. In return, the junior senator, Richard Milhous Nixon, got the second spot, and the governor, Earl Warren, got a promise of the first opening on the Supreme Court. (He was Chief Justice from 1953 to 1969).

The last major credentials fight[not counting the exclusion of whacko Lyndon LaRouche's Arkansas delegation in 1996, which wasn't really a fight] was in 1972, when the McGovern forces kicked out the democratically elected Illinois delegation and the anti-McGovern forces nearly kicked out the California delegation…which brings us to another subject all together…

In 1972, McGovern got 200 votes more than a bare majority needed to be nominated, however, the 900 or so delegates who didn’t vote for nominee HATED his guts and wanted him LOSE with a passion. So they decided to screw up the works.

McGovern chose Senator Thomas F. Eagleton of Missouri for his running mate, and the opposition decided to sabotage the works by scattering their votes among 88 people.

McGovern and Eagleton accepted the nomination at three in the morning.

The Reagan people did the same thing to Ford in 1976, and Ted Kennedy’s people did it to Carter in 1980, although the VP balloting was scheduled for the early afternoon and not prime time.

In 1988, the supporters of Jesse Jackson demanded the second spot as their right and were going to show it in the VP voting, but the Dukakis people decided to have a vote by acclamation resolution, bypassing a vote. Later that year, when it looked like the docile Republicans might actually vote against Dan Quayle.

It is rumored that the supporters of Howard Dean are going to get his name on the VP spot against John Edwards. It would be nice, but I doubt it will get very far.
Finally, there’s the platform. No one cares about the platform, so no one will bother to fight about it this time out. Kerry and Bush will get whatever they want.

Sunday, July 18, 2004

What the lefties want to do in Boston and NYC

The 2001 Quebec City Tear Gas Festival.


Every now and then, even the most patriotic residents of the greatest city in the Western Hemisphere get sick of the Big Apple. So when I saw a flyer posted on the south end of Washington Square Park advertising a bus trip to Quebec City to protest the Summit of the Americas, I was intrigued.

Cool!, I thought, Just the thing I need: A weekend trip out of the country! I thought that while everybody else was protesting, I'd take a look at some of the sites and give myself a sorely needed mini vacation. So I called up and made a reservation.

Unfortunately, the three day weekend special, which left on a Thursday and included a place to sleep, was already filled up, and the only thing left was the day trip, which left Friday night and arrived back in New York on Sunday morning. That cost sixty bucks, which is pretty cheap for a thousand mile bus trip. I decided to chance it.

So at around five-thirty PM, I went to the east side of Union Square and hooked up with the crowd. Here were a bunch of unreconstructed commies if there ever was one. Not that they weren't nice people, I just couldn't have a conversation about politics because of their knee-jerk anti-Americanism. They were all pro-Chinese when it came to the recent crisis and one woman actually said that everything the US government did in the international sphere was wrong. That didn't really matter much anyway, as was planning on sleeping most of the trip. Besides, when it came to other subjects, they seemed to be nice enough.

The bus left only half an hour late, and we headed west under the Lincoln tunnel to New Jersey and headed north to find the New York Throughway. If you look on a map, it would seem that basically going there on a right angle isn't as fast as going diagonally through Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont would be faster, and it would. But the union made demands and these were leftists, after all, so a right angle it was.

The reason for the conference, aside the usual schmoozing, was trade. For years there've been vague plans to extend NAFTA to include the entire New World, and so the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would allow goods to travel freely pretty much everywhere from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The lefties saw this as an evil conspiracy by VERY RICH MEN to take over the world without the consent of the unwashed masses. They HAD to be stopped!

They tried to do that when the World Trade Organization had it's meeting in Seattle last year. They managed to slow down that meeting for a short time and did lots of damage to local businesses [which, after all, were run by capitalists and therefore evil] in the downtown area. This was considered by the protesters to have been a great victory and they decided to do the same thing with every other economic meeting they knew about. There were attempts to start riots in Washington DC and Prague, Czechia, and while these for the most part failed, they did cause trouble. Canada is a very polite country and Quebec City is extremely picturesque.

Unfortunately, the picturesque part was behind the historic city wall and the fence set up to keep the imported rabble out. My plan had been foiled. I had to hang out with the protesters.

The protest was officially called the Second People's Summit of the Americas and when I had gotten there had been going on for a number of days. The people who had organized the event had a huge tent which would house a "teach-in" where a number of speakers would make picturesque speeches prior to the official protest march, where the marchers would march out of town and have a rally around five miles away from where the politicians were. The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), who was running the show and Quebec Public Security Minister Serge Ménard had made an agreement. No cops in the protest area and no protesters in the summit area. Were that to actually happen, all would be sweetness and light.

Fat chance.

The teach-in wasn't actually a teach-n but a rally where people we down here in the 'States have never heard of, gave speeches denouncing "the rich" for the usual high crimes and misdemeanors, among which were trying to let UPS compete with Canada Post in the package business. Horrors! It was all harmless.

Then there was the march, which was mostly Unionists and left-wing organizations holding signs denouncing the proposed FTAA, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Crétean, and the fact that Quebec wasn't allowed in the summit as an independent country. In fact there were so many Quebecois flags flying that you'd think it was their fourth of July.

Finally, the parade hit a fork in the road. The parade went to the right and I went to the left. The REAL fun was up near the wall, where the riot was scheduled.

In days of old, cities had walls. That was a time when local armies would go around attacking for no good reason and, in fact Quebec had to use it's protective walls back during the 17th and 18th centuries to keep out Indians and British. That's where the action was and so up I went. Rue Abraham, where the street was blocked by the cops and a wire fence. It was all very festive until my eyes began to burn.

So I got out some toilet paper from my tote bag and got some vinegar from a person near by to cover my nose and mouth. Someone kindly dropped his or her swimming goggles on the ground and as nobody else claimed them I used them to cover my eyes.

Then I saw it, the battle! The protesters were throwing stuff at the cops and the cops were throwing back tear gas canisters and shooting water cannons. I got a really good view and I wasn't close enough to get hit with the water. The tear gas, on the other hand wafted it's way down the street and most of us spectators turned tail and ran. Then we'd go back up to get a closer look.

After a couple of times following the ebb and floe, I decided to head to the alternative press center [the "real" one was on the other side of the wall], and see what was going on there. Just people writing and eating peanut butter sandwiches. It was very busy with people inside working and outside recuperating from the tear gas.

Then I decided to see if there was another, safer place to watch the festivities. So it's up a few blocks to Rue St. Jean Baptiste, where there seemed to be a huge block party going on. A couple of stores were actually open, but like much of the city, the shopkeepers had decided to stay home and watch it all on TV.

The scene on Rue St. Jean was mostly protesters hanging out and partying. There were balloons and beach balls and everyone was having a good time except when some tear gas would waft over from the battle zone three blocks away. The some in anarchist contingent didn't like the state of affairs didn't like this lack of militancy and decided to beat up some of the local press, then they decided to start a fire near the fence, which was a hundred feet from where I stood. I got a clear view of a dozen or so cops looking at the scene and decided that I might be just a little too close, I turned to walk away when the cops lobbed a tear gas canister over the fire and right on the street where I was standing. I got a full blast of the stuff. This wasn't fun anymore. Fortunately, there was a fellow with a canteen and I could wash the gas out of my eyes. I was ready to go home.

Unfortunately, due to union rules the driver wasn't going leave until midnight and it was still four in the afternoon. But there was stuff to do. There was free music in the park near where the parade turned right. There was lots of dancing. It would have been nice if there was decent music.

According to official reports there were twenty three thousand or so protesters opposed to 6,000 police. Apparently, the protesters were throwing rocks and hunks of concrete. That was not peaceful, and it accounts not only for the tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons, but for most of the 403 arrests that were reported as well.

Most of the people on the bus had gotten gassed, even the bus driver.
I guess that's why most of them spent sixty bucks and almost a full day on a bus. The problem is that they know as well as anybody that what they did in Quebec city isn't going to stop anything.

The official communiqué was pretty bland, and thanks to a screw up by the communications crew at the summit itself, one of the closed sessions was heard by the press. The presidents of most of Latin America didn't like what Bush was proposing and weren't going to agree to the draft treaty as written.

Remember, the 34 presidents and prime ministers attending had been elected democratically more or less, and they weren't merely lackeys of "American Imperialism" like most of the protest leaders made them out to be. Everyone was protecting their own turf.

The protesters lost again. But we on the bus left with a sense of triumph. I don't really know why except that we weren't in jail.

I'm going back Quebec city someday, this time when nothing of note is going on.

What the lefties want to do in Boston and NYC

The 2001 Quebec City Tear Gas Festival.


Every now and then, even the most patriotic residents of the greatest city in the Western Hemisphere get sick of the Big Apple. So when I saw a flyer posted on the south end of Washington Square Park advertising a bus trip to Quebec City to protest the Summit of the Americas, I was intrigued.

Cool!, I thought, Just the thing I need: A weekend trip out of the country! I thought that while everybody else was protesting, I'd take a look at some of the sites and give myself a sorely needed mini vacation. So I called up and made a reservation.

Unfortunately, the three day weekend special, which left on a Thursday and included a place to sleep, was already filled up, and the only thing left was the day trip, which left Friday night and arrived back in New York on Sunday morning. That cost sixty bucks, which is pretty cheap for a thousand mile bus trip. I decided to chance it.

So at around five-thirty PM, I went to the east side of Union Square and hooked up with the crowd. Here were a bunch of unreconstructed commies if there ever was one. Not that they weren't nice people, I just couldn't have a conversation about politics because of their knee-jerk anti-Americanism. They were all pro-Chinese when it came to the recent crisis and one woman actually said that everything the US government did in the international sphere was wrong. That didn't really matter much anyway, as was planning on sleeping most of the trip. Besides, when it came to other subjects, they seemed to be nice enough.

The bus left only half an hour late, and we headed west under the Lincoln tunnel to New Jersey and headed north to find the New York Throughway. If you look on a map, it would seem that basically going there on a right angle isn't as fast as going diagonally through Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont would be faster, and it would. But the union made demands and these were leftists, after all, so a right angle it was.

The reason for the conference, aside the usual schmoozing, was trade. For years there've been vague plans to extend NAFTA to include the entire New World, and so the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would allow goods to travel freely pretty much everywhere from the Arctic to the Antarctic. The lefties saw this as an evil conspiracy by VERY RICH MEN to take over the world without the consent of the unwashed masses. They HAD to be stopped!

They tried to do that when the World Trade Organization had it's meeting in Seattle last year. They managed to slow down that meeting for a short time and did lots of damage to local businesses [which, after all, were run by capitalists and therefore evil] in the downtown area. This was considered by the protesters to have been a great victory and they decided to do the same thing with every other economic meeting they knew about. There were attempts to start riots in Washington DC and Prague, Czechia, and while these for the most part failed, they did cause trouble. Canada is a very polite country and Quebec City is extremely picturesque.

Unfortunately, the picturesque part was behind the historic city wall and the fence set up to keep the imported rabble out. My plan had been foiled. I had to hang out with the protesters.

The protest was officially called the Second People's Summit of the Americas and when I had gotten there had been going on for a number of days. The people who had organized the event had a huge tent which would house a "teach-in" where a number of speakers would make picturesque speeches prior to the official protest march, where the marchers would march out of town and have a rally around five miles away from where the politicians were. The Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), who was running the show and Quebec Public Security Minister Serge Ménard had made an agreement. No cops in the protest area and no protesters in the summit area. Were that to actually happen, all would be sweetness and light.

Fat chance.

The teach-in wasn't actually a teach-n but a rally where people we down here in the 'States have never heard of, gave speeches denouncing "the rich" for the usual high crimes and misdemeanors, among which were trying to let UPS compete with Canada Post in the package business. Horrors! It was all harmless.

Then there was the march, which was mostly Unionists and left-wing organizations holding signs denouncing the proposed FTAA, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Crétean, and the fact that Quebec wasn't allowed in the summit as an independent country. In fact there were so many Quebecois flags flying that you'd think it was their fourth of July.

Finally, the parade hit a fork in the road. The parade went to the right and I went to the left. The REAL fun was up near the wall, where the riot was scheduled.

In days of old, cities had walls. That was a time when local armies would go around attacking for no good reason and, in fact Quebec had to use it's protective walls back during the 17th and 18th centuries to keep out Indians and British. That's where the action was and so up I went. Rue Abraham, where the street was blocked by the cops and a wire fence. It was all very festive until my eyes began to burn.

So I got out some toilet paper from my tote bag and got some vinegar from a person near by to cover my nose and mouth. Someone kindly dropped his or her swimming goggles on the ground and as nobody else claimed them I used them to cover my eyes.

Then I saw it, the battle! The protesters were throwing stuff at the cops and the cops were throwing back tear gas canisters and shooting water cannons. I got a really good view and I wasn't close enough to get hit with the water. The tear gas, on the other hand wafted it's way down the street and most of us spectators turned tail and ran. Then we'd go back up to get a closer look.

After a couple of times following the ebb and floe, I decided to head to the alternative press center [the "real" one was on the other side of the wall], and see what was going on there. Just people writing and eating peanut butter sandwiches. It was very busy with people inside working and outside recuperating from the tear gas.

Then I decided to see if there was another, safer place to watch the festivities. So it's up a few blocks to Rue St. Jean Baptiste, where there seemed to be a huge block party going on. A couple of stores were actually open, but like much of the city, the shopkeepers had decided to stay home and watch it all on TV.

The scene on Rue St. Jean was mostly protesters hanging out and partying. There were balloons and beach balls and everyone was having a good time except when some tear gas would waft over from the battle zone three blocks away. The some in anarchist contingent didn't like the state of affairs didn't like this lack of militancy and decided to beat up some of the local press, then they decided to start a fire near the fence, which was a hundred feet from where I stood. I got a clear view of a dozen or so cops looking at the scene and decided that I might be just a little too close, I turned to walk away when the cops lobbed a tear gas canister over the fire and right on the street where I was standing. I got a full blast of the stuff. This wasn't fun anymore. Fortunately, there was a fellow with a canteen and I could wash the gas out of my eyes. I was ready to go home.

Unfortunately, due to union rules the driver wasn't going leave until midnight and it was still four in the afternoon. But there was stuff to do. There was free music in the park near where the parade turned right. There was lots of dancing. It would have been nice if there was decent music.

According to official reports there were twenty three thousand or so protesters opposed to 6,000 police. Apparently, the protesters were throwing rocks and hunks of concrete. That was not peaceful, and it accounts not only for the tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons, but for most of the 403 arrests that were reported as well.

Most of the people on the bus had gotten gassed, even the bus driver.
I guess that's why most of them spent sixty bucks and almost a full day on a bus. The problem is that they know as well as anybody that what they did in Quebec city isn't going to stop anything.

The official communiqué was pretty bland, and thanks to a screw up by the communications crew at the summit itself, one of the closed sessions was heard by the press. The presidents of most of Latin America didn't like what Bush was proposing and weren't going to agree to the draft treaty as written.

Remember, the 34 presidents and prime ministers attending had been elected democratically more or less, and they weren't merely lackeys of "American Imperialism" like most of the protest leaders made them out to be. Everyone was protecting their own turf.

The protesters lost again. But we on the bus left with a sense of triumph. I don't really know why except that we weren't in jail.

I'm going back Quebec city someday, this time when nothing of note is going on.

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Okay, is anybody reading this?

please send a comment, okay?

Friday, July 16, 2004

C-Minus eight days

The great difference between the United States and the rest of the world is that each and every time we have an election, we have to start from scratch.

In Great Britain for example, they have the nominees all ready sometimes years before an election. Tony Blair was nominated for Prime Minister at least two years before he won that office. In France Jaques Chirac was his party’s presidential nominee for every election going back to the , get this, 1970s. No primaries there.

But here we start from scratch. President Bush, even with no opposition at all, had to go through the primary system. He received 7,838,334 votes or 98.1% of the total cast.
You probably didn’t know that. Because everybody knew Bush was going to run unopposed, so who cares?

But that’s the system. It dates back to 1971, when George McGovern led a commission to make sure there wouldn’t be any smoke-filled rooms where a nominee would be chosen by a few bigwigs like in days of yore.

In days of yore, political parties were more like social clubs, and members would hang out together and plot local or statewide conquest. The county and state clubs would get together in conventions and decide who would win that free trip to the national confab. If one was loyal and had the right connections one would get to go. Yeah, there were primaries back then, but for the most part there were beauty contests and some, like West Virginia in 1960, could be easily stolen.

The real process of nomination would take place at the conventions.

Starting in 1972, the people, in the primaries, actually chose the nominees, and, since 1976, when President Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were essentially tied, no convention has convened with the nominee’s identity still in doubt. (Carter was so unpopular in 1980 that they tried to unseat him, but it was waaaaay too late).

In the years since 1980, Political conventions have morphed from chaotic deliberative bodies to glorified trade shows, with dealers rooms and everything.

Boston is going to be my fifth one of these [and the first one where I didn’t have to find a way to sneak in.] Nothing unplanned is going to happen and that’s why the media is going to do it’s best to ignore the proceedings.

Yeah, there was a short dust-up about whether or not Hillery Clinton was going to speak, but it doesn’t matter, what matters is a four-day infomercial and the first prime-time speech by John Kerry covered live by all media.

But what about the people who actually GO there? What exactly are they going to be doing now that there’s nothing to decide? That’s what we’re going to explore in the next few weeks

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Flashback: 1996

We knew about it over a year ago, after all. When former Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey quit his single-issue challenge to Bill Clinton it became clear that this year's Democratic convention would be as news-free as the even bigger hardware convention that would proceed it by three weeks.

So why go? The answer can be made in two words. Free Food. Lots and lots and lots of free food.
Oh yeah, I wanted to get into the hall too, just to see the damned thing in real life. So several months ago I sent the requisite forms and copies of articles to Anamarie Torres the head of the convention's press section, but apparently the publication for which I had originally planned to write this for had the wrong color stationary, or so they said, so after initially telling me over the phone that I was getting the passes, thereby inspiring me to shell out two hundred bucks to get non refundable tickets, they sent a 'drop dead" letter, leaving me stuck. " there are so many things you can cover in Chicago BESIDES the convention" One of Ms. Torres' assistants said.

Yeah, sure.

So with revenge in my heart and my press pass in my pocket(as well as a few invites to official functions I was accidentally told about by people I was pawned off on by Ms. Torres or her assistants and applied for) I headed west to the Windy city to eat them out of house and home.
I arrived on the Saturday before the convention, and that night the city and a whole host of corporate sponsors were giving a shindig for the media at the Navy Pier, Chicago's equivalent of Playland. It was called "A Taste of Chicago" which was an understatement if there ever was one.
Taking my brother and sister-in-law in tow, we got in with little trouble and grabbed first drinks offered, white wine and some coke, then came the food., A good selection of the restaurants in the area had set up booths and were handing out free their wares. Every conceivable variety of edible was available, burritos, egg rolls, pizza, you name it, to be washed down with beer or soda. The best was the chocolate mousse in toothpaste tubes. Yummy.
I figure that between the three of us we ate the equivalent of thirty bucks, more than enough to compensate my relations for putting up with me for a week.

But morally that wasn't enough

So the next day I decided to give the people at media credentials one last chance. Anamarie Torres was not the mean old hag I had imagined but was actually very pleasant, unfortunately she was just as unbending as before and so was her boss who lied that he had no extra passes even though I know for a fact that he did, since I know of a couple of people who got them. I got back at these people by going to the media hospitality suite and scarfing down three bananas and a couple of cups of coffee before going to the Sheraton and trying my luck there.
While chomping on my second banana, I snuck into a number of other pass distribution centers and noticed some invitations lying on a number of tables, just there for the taking. As other people were taking them I did too. This and a list of the official parties would be the night's menu.

Veterans were giving out munchies and booze. The Hispanic caucus was inexplicably shelling out Chinese grub, and the Americans for Democratic Action Thai shish kabob. But this was nothing compared with the official receptions given by the lobbyists for the state delegations.
There were forty of them all told and they were serving even better food than the people at the Navy pier did. Fish, steak, chicken, several kinds of pizza, hot dogs, tacos, burritos. even lobsters I was only kicked out of one party for not having the right credentials (DAMN that Anamary Torres!!) But a sixth helping of complementary chili aswayed my anger and by the time I returned to my brother's place I was well and truly stuffed and proud of myself for a job well done.

The convention was from Monday to Thursday and the schedule went something like this: First to the Mariott for morning coffee and some fruit. Then to the Hyatt for brunch and the morning press briefing, in which Senator Christopher Dodd(D-Ct) would be asked repeatedly about why there was such an appalling lack of riots. Following that, there was another brunch and a meeting of the woman's caucus, which had first rate speakers like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. This of course, meant that it was almost time for lunch, which was at the Palmer House, and also included a speaker or two like Ann Richards or James Carville, who usually followed an opening act by the secretary of something or other.

One thing about these things that was particularly illuminating was the pizza. The people in Chicago make truly great pizza, but they can't slice the damn stuff correctly if their life depended on it. the cheese falls on the plate and all your left with is crust. Some things can only be done right here on the east coast I guess, pity.

After that and the mid-afternoon high tea reception and ordarves, it was time to go to the United center convention hall and revenge!

I didn't have a pass. Not the first day, at any rate. On the second day I got a used one and, after purchasing a pass-holder, carefully covered the date with a used pass that got me into the Sheraton the day before. Surprisingly it worked!

I crashed to hall the second day, and finding that I was too early for anything decent, I went outside to the press tents and discovered what I'd been truly looking for—the six o'clock feeding.
Ameritech, Chicago's equivalent of Nynex, had graciously sponsored a smaller repeat of the fun at the Navy pier of the previous Saturday. All the grub you could grab—gratis.
Ben Watenburg, a PBS pundit was giving a talk at the USIA cubicle, and afterwards I went up to him to tell him I was a fan. Bernard Kalb, now of CNN was there too. While they greeted me with the usual weary "ugh, a fan" pleasantries I mentioned it was almost time for the six o'clock feeding, and the venerable pundits demeanor changed. Their eyes grew wide and their voices resembled that of little boys at Christmas. "Where is it?" they asked. I told them.
Even before this exchange, the word had gotten out. Delegates and convention staff were soon filling up the tent and lining up for crab cakes, chili, barbecued ribs, shish kabob, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, chow mien, taco, burritos tacos, and other delights, to be washed down with Snapple® and beer.
The best part was the cheesecake. Eli's cheesecake is famous all over the Chicago area, and the guy at the booth seemed generally insulted when I mentioned it was only cheesecake. "ONLY cheesecake?!" He cried "Taste it!" Okay, it was better than the usual cheesecake. What was best was the chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick—heaven.
The final night they were checking passes to make sure only the media got in.
I couldn't get back into the hall, but I didn't mind, the press tents were fine enough.

The right-wing Weekly Standard denounced the six o'clock feeding, undoubtedly with their mouths full. Democrats having fun is always offensive to that bunch.
Having finished the democratic feast, I have to go on a republican diet. OOG!

Backgrounder: clinton

The exact moment the administration of William Jefferson Clinton was bitten by a snake was at exactly 1:02 PM on January 20th 1993.

An unremembered pressperson discovered the door to Press Secratary DeeDee Myers’ office was locked, somthing none of Myers’ predecessors had ever bothered to do. The press got mad, real mad and attacked Myers over the affair for the better part of the following week.

The press has had it in for Clinton and his administration ever since.

Bill Clinton's presidency hasn't been nearly as bad as most people remember it. The economy has managed to avoid reccession, the only war we've been in (Somolia) was a leftover from the Bush administration, foriegn policy has been pretty successful (except for most favored nation status for China) and government services are being given as effeciantly as they ever were despite massive budget cuts. Had it been anyone else, it would have seemed to be a pretty good record.

But DeeDee Myers locked her door and since then, Clinton could do no right. The left wing of the Democratic party demanded blind obedience, which he couldn't give, the right wing of the Republican party proclaimed him the antichrist, which he couldn't deny with a strait face. Paula Jones accused him of sexual harassment, Sen.Al d’Amato(R-NY) has been proclaiming that the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas be the worst crime since Auschwitz...et cetera, et cetera.
The press has been egging this sort of thing on.

The Left wing of the Democratic party hated Clinton almost as much as the right wing of the Republicans. As a "ten percent traitor" is more odious in their eyes than a 100% one, they happily vote against him whenever they can, witness the 1995 Senate vote on Clinton's budget when everybody, even supporters, voted against it.

Of course the Republicans had taken over Congress for the first time in decades. It might have been time for a change as the Democrats been fat and lazy.

Then the Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, decided to shut down the government because he got a bad seat on Air Force One. That was Clinton’s salvation, by the end on the year he’d be back on top and reelected in almost a landslide in 1996.

But there had been a misstep and he’d fell six points, taking the Congress with him. It was a tiny misstep, and I don’t remember what it was, but it kept the Republicans in Congressional power for the rest of the 20th Century.

This also led to Clinton’s impeachment a couple of years later.

It’s the tiny things that make history.

okay, this is going to possibly work.

So, once apon a midnight weary....lenore.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Here we go?

Okay, we're going to start again. We've got the Democratic letter
and thus we're going to get to go to Boston.