The Republicans Find Their Pulse

Blogging is a different form of journalism, if it can be called journalism at all. 

As many have you pointed out, there was a lot of news yesterday and it was undoubtedly an important day in the presidential campaign.  It was a dramatic day outside the conventional hall with the violent demonstrations and tear gas, the revelation of the pregnancy of Governor Palin’s daughter, and Senator McCain and Senator Obama each campaigning off-site. 

The reality is, however, that the “news” happened outside of the hall, leaving me to relay what I saw from the inside.  

Lots of deflation.  That was yesterday.

This morning, I felt this convention’s heartbeat for the first time.  It was at a breakfast sponsored by the New Hampshire and South Carolina delegations.  There were a host of speakers including Senator Dan Coats, Senator Lindsey Graham, Governor Buddy Roemer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Cindy McCain, and others.  I don’t want to suggest there was no script or that people spoke without notes, but people clearly recognize that the parade has begun, and that if the parade is going to be worth watching they are going to have to step up and give it their own voice. 

It was a morning that people spoke from their hearts about why they support John McCain, why they are excited about Governor Palin, and what was most striking was that as the morning unfolded, you could feel the pulse of the room come alive.  Even more surprisingly, there was not a negative word spoken about Barack Obama or Joe Biden.   I can’t find in my notes a negative word spoken about the Democrats.  It was a morning when the Republicans realized that the order of the day was to find their own voice and remind each other what they believe and why. 

The press was there in droves and I’ll be utterly fascinated to find out how the event is covered.  Obviously, I heard the speech of politicians: eloquent oratory, bits of stump speeches, and sound bites.  What gave the morning a pulse was that it was fresh.  People were improvising.  They are pulling together in support of a Senator who has not always been welcome at party gatherings and Governor many have never met. 

We are promised three full days of convention beginning tonight, and there is no doubt that much of it is scripted.  There is also no doubt that some of the script is being rewritten presently.  But there is a collective sense of energy coming from delegates and leaders who realize that unless everyone steps up and elevates their game, this will indeed be a parade most painful.

I said yesterday that the Republicans had no rock stars that could compete with the Democrats.  They may prove me wrong.  I’ve heard all this morning’s speakers before, and all of them were better than I had ever heard them.  The Republicans know the Democrats laid down the gauntlet in Denver.  The Republicans know they will have to dramatically elevate their game to have a chance.  If they have people who have the ability to do that, it may end up being a parade of great interest. 

Back to the Xcel Center.  With anticipation for a change.

Slow Parade

A wise person once said, “Be careful what you wish for.” After pining away for more than a week for an unscripted convention, today I got my wish, but it was not what I wanted.

I have been struggling for hours to compose this blog entry, because I have been desperately searching for an interesting way to describe the first day of the convention that wasn’t. To say that it was boring, wouldn’t do it justice.

So after searching my iTunes library for musical inspiration, I found it in the song “Slow Parade” by the Broken Records of Edinburgh, Scotland.

As long as we understand the word slow to mean ‘really slow’, like so slow that it is literally painful to stand and watch, the image works.

I won’t bore you with the details, because there are too few to be boring. Like any good parade, the Republican parade has all appearances being visually appealing. The stage, the lighting, and the balloons high in the rafters of the Excel Energy Center hold promise. What happened inside the Convention Center was simply this: The convention was convened at 2:30p CDT, and almost as quickly as it was convened it was adjourned for 2 hours. It then reconvened for some procedural votes, 15 minutes of Laura Bush, Cindy McCain, and 4 Gulf Coast Governors speaking of Hurricane Gustav, and was then adjourned. There was nothing was done today that could not have been done better tomorrow.

What made it worse than boring was the mood of the people in the hall. The delegates who paid a LOT of money to come to the convention knew it was a wasted day and were more than disappointed. The members of the media who are utterly exhausted from last week, went through the motions, but they all knew that despite the fact they were going to work hard all day and night the only news of importance was happening outside of the hall. One policeman in the hall summed it up best for those working the event when he stopped and asked, “Why is this so boring?”

I don’t know anyone who has high hopes for tomorrow. We still don’t know what the schedule will be, and I’m not sure anyone is losing sleep over it. There is nothing to suggest the parade will be anything but slow tomorrow, even if there are more people marching.

The inconvenient truth is that the rate of speed and lack of energy is not merely due to the appearance of Hurricane Gustav. If the measure of the quality of a convention in this political age is based on charisma and star power (and not the ability to govern), the Republicans have no one to match Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, and Barack Obama. There is no one in the party who can ‘perform’ the way those four can. I’m not sure the Republicans could match the 85,000 who attended Obama’s acceptance speech. If politics were a rock concert the Republicans could not share the same bill as the Democrats.

This is a slow parade.

But there is the prospect that on Wednesday the Republicans may have a “moment” that will enable their parade to not just match, but surpass the parade we watched in Denver. This moment may make the entire parade worth watching. This moment is the vice-presidential acceptance speech of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

The level of interest in Sarah Palin and her speech is growing exponentially as we learn more and more about her and her family. In Denver, the Democrats and Obama met very high expectation (no small feat). On Wednesday we don’t know what to expect from Sarah Palin, but the interest in her is becoming so intense that I would not be surprised to see the ratings for the evening break all convention records. If on Wednesday night, with the whole nation watching, she rises to the occasion, it will indeed be a moment of beautiful imperfection. If she rises to the occasion, McCain’s acceptance speech on Thursday night will also command our attention. “Who is this man who asked Sarah Palin to be his running mate?

I’ve never seen anything like this. None of us have. Which is why this slow parade is all of a sudden worth watching. Unlike Denver, we don’t know what will happen on Wednesday, and the tractor beam of curiosity is beginning to capture America.

In a world of political rock stars and well-financed political machines, the most unlikely thing has emerged. One of “the rest of us” has a chance to go to Washington, DC. Something unscripted is occurring. Something human is occurring and there is no one who knows how this is going to play out.

Today I may have been bored, but as the day unfolded and as I learned more about Sarah Palin, I found myself beginning to edge to the end of my seat in anticipation of Wednesday.

It may be a slow parade, but there is the hope it could become a thing of beauty.

Beautiful Imperfection

Pip Wilson penned the lyric and Fort Pastor wrote the song. The phrase “Beautiful Imperfection” seems to capture that for which I yearn as I turn my attention toward the Republican National Convention.

As I fly to Minnesota and reflect further on what I witnessed in Denver, the more disturbed I am by the nature of contemporary politics. I am still astonished at the sophistication the Obama campaign used to fashion and present their message in Denver. Save for the Clinton speeches, the entire event was scripted right down to the “town hall meetings.” And the scripting went beyond words to the music, the lighting, the camera angles, and even the backdrop.

Since I was sitting high behind Obama during his acceptance speech, I watched most of it on the giant stadium TV screens. There were many points during the speech when I wondered if I was seeing a “floating cross” behind Obama. The window framing behind him formed an almost constant cross when he was on the front-center camera. Had he been smaller, taller, or had the camera angle been slightly different, we would have seen a rectangular window frame. Instead, there was a moving cross gracing the screen every time the camera zoomed in on him from front-center. Given the use of Biblical imagery in his speech and those preceding him, I can’t dismiss this possibility this detail was any more of a coincidence than it was in Mike Huckabee’s Christmas greeting ad.

While I have never been to a Republican convention, I’m told that the Republicans can do all of this even better. Without the Clinton’s around to inject a bit of drama into the proceedings, if McCain allows himself to be handled, there is no reason to believe they can’t do a better job of scripting and conveying an image and a message.

As I go to St. Paul, I’m not looking for perfection, but I am yearning for some imperfection. I have no desire for a hurricane to make landfall, and I pray it dissolves into a mere depression. Nevertheless, the prospect of the real world raining on the parade of the pseudo-world of political consultants excites me. Not because I can’t appreciate the beauty of a campaign game plan well executed, but because I want to gain some perspective on who would make a good President. That is not judged by how well one can create an image and stay on message in a campaign, but on how a person deals, albeit imperfectly, with the challenges life throws at us.

The hurricane presents such a challenge for both McCain and Obama. How do you conduct a political convention or campaign in the midst of an event that will alter the lives of everyone in the path of the storm? The answer to that question will tell me more about the suitability of Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin than what I saw in Denver.

The decision on how to handle this convention is a decision that requires judgment. These are the kind of decisions Presidents are faced with daily. I’ll be very interested to see how McCain and Palin handle it. I’ll be very interested to see how Obama and Biden campaign in anticipation of the storm and in its wake. Their consultants will be telling both of them to stay with the plan, to stay on message, because to move off message is to risk making a mistake.

I’d prefer that if mistakes are to be made they are made before the election rather than after, so that we can judge accordingly.

That’s why I believe there is something to be said for beautiful imperfection. The more opportunities we have before November to find out how these 4 candidates handle real world challenges where no perfect response exists, the better. It is in imperfection that we can judge the true character of the contenders.

Gender Matters

Helen Aguirre Ferre makes it look so easy.

Helen is a journalist with Univision and Diario Las Americas, and last week in Denver I watched her interview literally dozens of people about all aspects of the Democratic National Convention.

She just engages people in conversation and they instantly begin to share whatever is on their mind and then some. They hardly realize they are being interviewed and they feel better about themselves when the conversation is over.

As I arrived here at the Manchester Airport for my flight to the Twin Cities, I realized that the first subject I need to blog is Sarah Palin and what she means to McCain and the Republicans in November.

The problem is I don’t know. I made a promise to myself when I decided to blog the conventions that I would minimize my exposure to what journalists are saying and writing about it all. I want to share, to the greatest degree possible, my reflections on what I observe and not be interacting with the conventional wisdom.

So I decided I’d do what Helen does. Front-line journalism. As I waited for my flight I sat down next to a woman and asked her opinion of McCain’s choice for VP.

The conversation went something like this.  I led by asking,

“Excuse me are you heading out to Minnesota for the Convention?”

“No, I want to be as far away from there as possible.”

“What do you think of McCain’s choice for Vice-President?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m writing a blog for the convention, and I’m conducting some interviews on the subject.”

“What are you, a journalist?”

“In a matter of speaking.”

“You have a problem with her?”

“You mean Sarah Palin?” I replied.

“Of course.”

“No, I’ve not developed an opinion yet.”

“That’s what I hate about you journalists. You pretend you have no opinions and then you twist and distort the words of perfectly good people for your own ends. Let me tell you I think she is a terrific choice.”

“Why? Do you think she’d be a good commander and chief?”

“How the heck would I know? All I know is that she can’t be any worse that what we’ve got. She’s got five kids, she’s a Governor, she’s got a kid with Down Syndrome and a husband who is a Democrat, and she lives as far away as humanly possible from Washington, DC. What’s not to like? “

The interview took a turn for the worse when she asked me,

“Do you have a problem with a woman in the White House?’

“No, of course not.”

“Well why are you asking me this question. You men just can’t deal with a strong woman. Well let me tell you what this country needs is a strong woman. You want change, get a Hockey Mom. I’m a Hockey Mom, there’s a whole bunch of us that could do a better job than this group of losers.”

And then some other women came over and joined in the fun.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

Now, even as I write this entry, they are still talking and looking at me.

If the goal of the McCain Campaign was to get people talking about something other than Obama this weekend it is working. I just hope people will quit talking about me.

I still don’t have an opinion.

But when I get to Minnesota I’m going to let Helen ask the questions.

She makes it look so easy.

Doing Penance

I will no longer make sweeping negative generalizations about journalists and the media.

I confess I have a history of being critical of the media.

OK, I confess I have been really critical.

I find myself sitting in my dining room trying to pull together a coherent blog entry for tonight and the room is spinning. Or is it me?

5 days, 3000 miles, 15 hours of sleep, many hours being fed a story by the DNC, and many more hours trying to make sense of what it all means.

It is very apparent to me right now that man does not live by coffee alone.

It is also very apparent to me right now that the adrenal glands only produce a limited amount of adrenaline a week.

Tonight is my penance for all the unfair criticism I have heaped upon journalists.

Its not that I am out of material to blog. To the contrary, I’ve got reams. My flight from Denver to Chicago was the Obama Express, with no fewer than 25 elected officials and delegates. That one flight alone, combined with my ongoing reflection on Obama’s speech and the entire Democratic National Convention, has given me more than enough material for days of blogging.

And then there is the matter of Sarah Palin.

The Democrats on the plane were positively giddy when they heard McCain’s choice. They positively feared Romney, and are thrilled with Palin. They were some high-fives exchanged as the news spread. My guess is that there were Republicans flying to Minneapolis/St. Paul doing high fives for the opposite reason. This choice needs to be analyzed.

The Democrats on my plane were making Inauguration plans. I am guessing there are Republicans doing the same. Ralph Nader is making plans of his own.

All of this requires analysis. This is the moment for intelligent reflection on Sarah Palin and what it means for the Republican National Convention and the Presidential race.

But that reflection won’t be coming from me. Not tonight at least.

I’m doing penance for living 5 days in the fast lane.

But tonight there are men and women who got less sleep than me during the last 5 days who are doing us all a great public service. They are doing what a democracy needs done. They are working to provide us with the best information possible to make informed decisions about the things that matter most.

This week I saw up front and personal how hard it is to be a good journalist. It is easy to be a lazy journalist and end up being a propaganda machine. I have seen some lazy journalists this week. But, I have seen many more hard working journalists. I have also seen how hard it is to write a story about a Presidential race when the two biggest corporations in the world, the Democratic and Republican parties, are seeking to write the story for you.

So tonight, I’m doing penance for living like I’m in college again.

Tomorrow, I’m celebrating my 28th wedding anniversary.

Sunday, caffeine and adrenaline willing, I’ll be on the plane to Minneapolis ready to do my part for the cause.

In the meantime, if you see a journalist, give them a hug and buy them a cup of coffee. They deserve our thanks and all the caffeine they can get.

I’m Going to Bed

It is 4:25 a.m. EST and the Republican VP hasn’t yet been leaked.

Yet Govenror Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota gave the quote of the day when he accidentally referred to the Democratic VP Candidate from Delaware as Obiden.

If Obama wins, I may have to change my name to Okuehne. :)

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