GOP Convention 2000: Day 3

The day starts slowly, with waffles and bagels at 10:30, down in the hotel restaurant. This, followed by at least 4 hours of lounging around and doing light typing, is our way of paying ourselves back for being stupid enough to send ourselves on Monday's practice march through hell. But things gain momentum as Josh and I try to assemble a panel discussion of young politically active people participating in Philadelphia. The goal: bridging the gap between protesters and delegates.

Several dozen phone calls to protest groups and random lobby conversations with the resident GOPsters pay off. But the thing that brings it all together is a random contact the day before with the student group Alliance for Democracy, who have been kind enough to help us facilitate our search.

It's on: 5pm, at Siam Cuisine, downtown. It's to be me, Josh, recording equipment and three people with markedly different viewpoints on the world: a rising young GOP establishmentarian; a Young Republican founding a new, leftward arcing GOP movement and a protester who's been in the thick of some of the day's direct actions out in the Philadelphia streets.

The cab ride to Siam Cuisine can be described charitably as "weird." Our cabmates were a lobbyist for Compaq and her quiet, vaguely creepy husband. The majority of our conversation consists of her describing what a terrible convention it is in terms of food and logistics, how annoying the protesters have been in terms of their impact on traffic and how fraudulent the cab drivers are in terms of ripping off convention-goers like herself.

The cab driver, of course, is still in the car. Hoping to make the situation even more uncomfortable, I nod and say noncommittal but affirmative things to keep the stream of inanity coming. A personal favorite: our cab gets on the expressway to (quite sensibly) get around the protest-ridden streets of Philadelphia. My newly-found Compaq-pitching friend turns to me conspiratorially and says, "Isn't that downtown Philadelphia way over there?" I have to agree. Those buildings look tall. Within seconds, a quick, broken English vs. upper-class sarcasm discussion erupts between the woman and our driver, resulting in nothing but the creation of a general air of discomfort.

Josh and I happily leap from the cab when it parks itself in front of Siam Cuisine. We worry that we're going to be stood up (it happens) but we're pleasantly rewarded — Dara Silverman, the national organizer from United For a Fair Economy, shows up right away. She's dressed in an orange tank top, and has the obligatory grungy, just-in-from-the-street look about her, but she carries a cell phone. Jon Sims of the Bull Moose Republicans shows up next, wearing the unofficial 2000 GOP Convention uniform: suit pants with a blue dress shirt and a mustard yellow tie. People on the floor are wearing it. Interns are wearing it. Sen. Chuck Hagel (NE) is wearing it in the evening when he introduces Sen. John McCain. There's simply no explanation for it.

Jon also has a cell phone.

A few minutes later, Josh's friend Andy Wheeler appears, from the Washington delegation. He, too has a cell phone.

In the meantime, Josh, Dara, Jon and I have already begun bantering about the protests. We already know Andy's bright, so when Dara and Jon quickly prove their grasp of issues and ideology, we knew we have three live wires. This is good.

The discussion centers on domestic policy — a struggle over how to erase or minimize the gap between the rich and poor dominates the conversation. But the satisfying thing about the discussion is that we have three young people in the room who are all doing remarkable things to get ahead and/or build a more perfect country. Dara is the national organizer for a non-profit, non-partisan group struggling to bring a message of economic equality and fair wages to the country. Andy has risen through the ranks of his state GOP to become one of its most successful speech writers — at age 23. Jon has founded a new movement within the Republican party that already has several hundred members — a figure that is now almost doubling on a daily basis during the convention.

And while doctrine separates all three of them, a common interest in taking an active hand in America's political future brings all of them together.

That, and free Thai food.

After dinner and some card swapping, the convention itself is anticlimactic — John McCain's address sounds phoned-in compared to the fire that he flung during his stump speeches in March. But one image from the evening took root, and now won't let go:

When Pat Funderburk Ware takes the rostrum, she rails against AIDS, and the fact that, as a black woman, she is a member of the two groups in America that now have the highest AIDS infection rate. When C-SPAN cuts to the reaction shots of the GOP delegates, the camera broadcasts faces of stone. This isn't boredom — it's hostility. When it's time to applaud, First Union Center barely ripples. Whoever put together the GOP's amazingly consistent message of inclusion and compassion apparently forgot to clear it with the men and women down on the floor.

Next: Happy Birthday, Alan Keyes!