"Fulfilling America's Promise: Building a Safer World and a More Hopeful America" ~ 2004 Republican National Convention slogan

The Republican convention started today down in New York. I've never watched one before. I was excited and was looking forward to great coverage from CPAC, as they were pretty good during the Democratic national convention. However, I watched on CPAC and laughed and laughed. CPAC seems to think that having a camera person wander around the floor is good coverage. So it's like you are there, wandering aimlessly with the camera man trying to get closer to the *action*. (and I can say with some confidence that there really was no action at all) The security guard comes over and tells 'us'...no, can't go there, go here. The guard even moves a person out of the way for 'us'. Knocking into people we weave our way through republicans talking about the weather, Republicans talking about the Olympics and one guy who sadly spilled his coffee (perhaps vodka) on his tie and is having some manual dexterity problems trying to balance all his crap whilst trying to clean up the spill without spilling more. (honestly these were the things the camera man passed by, no commentary, nothing...except the band playing "Soul Man" off in the distance)

Next, we walk past a group of young men in suits who are staring at seniors dressed like patriotic Uncle Sam (you know, with the garish, big top-hat with the stars and stripes). The seniors are mostly dressed in red, white and blue, except that the suits they wear are bright-ass yellow. This seems inappropriate to "The younger suits" who look on disapprovingly, whispering..."Oh that yellow is all wrong..." "I wouldn't wear that...well not *that* suit..."

The Camera ('us') pans to the left...weaving us through the sparse crowd. People gathered from Colorado...Conneticut...California. We pan across rows and rows of empty seats.

Then we come up to another group of people. A mix of women and men, in their 40's or so, talking about swing states and the protests from the day before. The woman, in a lovely suit, says something derogatory without realizing 'we' are listening, her friend gives a good effort to get her to shut up, but to no avail. She blathers on for a few moments about the protests and then finally gets the hint and turns around. She turned about 3 shades of red...

We turn our back and walk away...(okay well not really, the cameraman just keeps going... but I would have turned my back and walked away..tee hee)

This wandering about, living vicariously through the cameraman, continues for a while until they *finally* get back to the task of roll call and nomination votes and our attention is drawn back to the stage. Nomminations, eh? Now to me this seems redundant. Is there really someone out there wondering who will get nominated? "Who, who could it be? Oh, the excitement, the thrill of the unknown!!!"
I don't bloody think so...

The Chair "hearing no other nominations" moves us quickly on to roll call.

So Sara Gear Boyd, Secretary of the Convention, reads out the name of the state and the votes it contributes. It goes a little like this:

Ms. Boyd says, "Guam, nine." Then their representative gets up and says lovely things about their own state and remark about *any* republican within the borders of said state and how many of their votes (ummm...usually all of them) go to George W. Bush.

Then The Honorable Jane Norton, Assistant Secretary of the Convention, repeats this information back to the secretary (who is about 3 feet from her) for confirmation. They do this for every state....over and over.

These secretaries must be from the Department of Redundancy Department.
And apparently it will *only* take 2 days to complete this roll call. They've broken it down into three sections. Sheesh...I hope you don't miss all the *action*

Sadly I had to leave before Rudy Giuliani took the stage. I hope to catch more of the convention, but sweet Jesus, I hope the coverage is better.

Funnily enough, each day they have a different theme:

Today's theme: "A Nation of Courage"
Tomorrows' theme:
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
"People of Compassion"
I, for one, can hardly wait to see these compassionate Conservatives.