GOP Convention 2000: Day 5

Josh and I get rolling late — almost too late to catch lunch in the hotel restaurant. I ordered my meal by pointing at the menu, while talking on my cell phone to my editor, feeling like one of the over-dressed asses that I've been writing about.

As I slowly shovel in my dangerously bland mushroom ravioli, I suddenly realize the fun has worn off.

Somehow, it's been one day too many, and we've gotten up 3 or 4 hours too late. Even the prospect of George W. Bush's speech fills us with little vigor, though we've batted around a few possible disaster scenarios to entertain ourselves. My favorite: Bush, having fallen off the wagon in a fit of nervousness, has 5 or 6 martinis before the big event in order to "loosen up."

He gets up on stage, fumbles several lines, and winds up breaking down and crying, mumbling incoherently that "I didn't want it, I didn't want it, my dad said it was for America, but what about me? What about me?"

This is followed by copious vomiting, some of which splashes off the Texas delegation's big stupid hats.

But after slouching our way in to the First Union center, I meet up with my friend Mark (who is an honest-to-God reporter for National Journal's CongressDaily). He regales me with tales of interviewing Newt and other political superstars. He takes me to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. He tells me about his prodigious and ridiculous drinking exploits.

Suddenly charged by a sense of patriotism and mission, I feel better about journalism, better about alcohol, and better about myself as a human being.

Bush's speech — which can make or break the whole race — suddenly seems important indeed.

Needless to say, Josh and I are fired up to get up on the press gallery for this one. After checking out the scene in the media pavilion, we truck on over to the security checkpoint, with our "2" passes — good for the press gallery — neatly tucked into our credential pouches.

Then it happens. We're stopped by security goons. "You've got to have '5' passes tonight, guys." "5" passes? What the hell is a "5" pass?

But sure enough, everywhere we look, people streaming through security are jauntily wearing "5" passes and expressions of utter contentment. Crap. We are clearly screwed. The drawer back at the pavilion has no "5" passes, and we know it.

The walk back to the tent feels long, and miserable. But it isn't so bad — these "5" passes must be fairly exclusive. VIP only. And we're just junior staffers.

It's then that two janitors walk by us. Around their necks: gold chains. But also: "5" passes.

A plan forms:

1. Waylay janitor in PortoPotty
2. Steal "5" pass
3. Tip at least $10

This is disregarded for the simple ethical consideration that either of them could easily beaten the crap out of me.

And so it is with a palpable and butter-thick air of despondency that Josh and I settle in to watch "W" do his thing on the little screen. But ten minutes into the speech (which is shockingly solid, and relatively well-delivered), my phone rings.

It's Abe, one of our reporters. He's out at the press gallery, watching the speech. And he's coming back to the pavilion so I can take his "5" pass and get in to see Bush speak.

Camera in hand, I run full tilt from the pavilion back to the security checkpoint, and meet Abe at the gate. Several effusive thanks later, I'm in - walking through gate 122 out onto one of the spectacle's many balconies.

If the crowd was numerous and enthusiastic before, they're infinite and fanatic this time around. The entire First Union Center seethes with color and body heat as Bush delivers even tones of rebuke and renewal that send those present into wave after wave of enthusiastic applause.

I'm stunned — and shaking with emotion. Here I am, a sensible Wisconsin independent — with, to be honest, some decidedly liberal and skeptical leanings — and George W. Bush and the masses have me in an emotional sling. This is ridiculous — and wonderful.

Ten minutes later, I'm running out again to give Josh a chance to witness the brilliantly channeled chaos that fills the First Union to the brim. But as I sit back down in front of the television, looking over the speech's script with Abe, I know something within me has changed.

I have become a Republican.

No, I'm only kidding. That'd be horrific for everyone. I've experienced, firsthand, the power of the organized political rally. It doesn't come through on television, but the same spirit that animated Hitler's hundreds of thousands at Nuremburg fills the First Union Center. And I'm not talking about the spirit of fascism, or hatred — it's the electric, humbling, connected feeling of oneness that can only come from a rally that packs person against person and then fills them with the same broad, strong vision of action and change.

It's the spirit that animates the party faithful. If diehard Republicanism is a creed, the delegates on the floor have just gotten religion in a big way.

The further I get from Bush's speech, the less it really impresses me. His delivery was competent, if a bit stiff and flat. It read like a document assembled by committee, addressing a hodgepodge of interests in a seemingly random order. And it took a few concrete negative stabs at Clinton and Gore, stabs that will undoubtedly be answered swiftly, and in kind.

But it worked. It talked the talk of the GOP convention, and used language Republicans have long been unwilling to use:

Yes, we do care about the poor. Yes, we do care about minorities, and we think we can help them. Yes, this party is for everyone — not just the rich, and the white.

Does it matter that, according to the National Journal, about 20 percent of the delegates down on the floor were millionaires? That most were white? That Republicans still favor massive tax cuts for the rich, no increase in the minimum wage, and free trade over human rights?

Of course. But to hear the party talking to someone other than itself was a change — and it made me think that Bush may very well walk home with this race.

The Republicans put on a good show, though it had its weird moments. It had its loathsome delegates, transportation snafus and hollow moments. It had delegates praying for the soul of an openly gay speaker, and staring coldly at a black woman on the forefront of the war on AIDS. And it had rhetoric largely detached from policy, floating like a soap bubble toward a ceiling fan.

But there was also a shadow convention. And there were people trying to change the Republican Party from within. There was Alan Keyes, having a birthday party and feeling the love. And there was the combined energy of thousands of honest people being directed toward building what they really, really believe is a better nation.

It is, therefore, reassuring to think that there are still thousands of people who care about politics, who revel in the process, and seethe with political energy. But after a week of partisan bombardment, it's hard not to wish that more of them would get away from the glitz of the two-party machine and strike out for new territory.

E-mail James Norton at jrnorton@flakmag.com.