Chicago Dispatch 1 - Convention Memories

Do They Matter? Yes and No.

I’m in the Windy City for the week. Chicago is a great town and just the best in the summer. I’ll be sending updates and ideas from the Democratic National Convention.

Memory Lane

The first convention I worked was President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 reelection conclave in Houston, Texas. I was 16. The Astrodome was much older, and showed every bit of its age.

I was assigned to be a driver for a member of First Lady Barbara Bush’s staff. For said task, I was assigned an Oldsmobile station wagon that was no less than 68 feet long. Back and forth from the Astrodome to the Houstonian Hotel I drove.

Every time I pulled into hotel garage, I had to stop while the Secret Service ran dogs and mirrors over the car. I had to experience Pat Buchanan in jogging shorts and a t-shirt and a cabinet secretary tussling my hair and saying, “And thanks for your help, tiger!”

Speaking of Buchanan, I was on the floor of the Astrodome when Buchanan gave his now-infamous “better in the original German” speech that helped split the Republican coalition and should have served as a warning sign of what was growing within the GOP.

By week’s end, I’d seen a lot, most of it in retrospect, I didn’t fully understand or comprehend. As for the Olds? I knocked off both side mirrors and put multiple dents in it. I’d guess GM didn’t take it back.

Houston 1992 mattered.

Four years later, I landed in San Diego, California for Bob Dole’s convention. I wasn’t a Dole or Kemp guy, and I was working for an outfit called GOP-TV, think streaming before it was a thing.

I have only three memories of that convention.

First, no one thought we were going to win so there wasn’t a ton of pressure.

Second, the Melee for Haley (Barbour) is still, after all these years, one of the best political parties I ever attended.

Third, one day I’d been dispatched to do man-on-street interviews at the San Diego Zoo. We’d been there about 30 minutes when Frank Luntz and one of his goons showed up to tell us he was now in charge of the project and we were to leave forthwith. It was the last time I ever considered listening to anything Frank says.

San Diego was a great time, but it didn’t change the race.

Fast forward eight years, and I spent three months in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania preparing for George W. Bush’s nominating convention. I was surprised by how much the Committee on Arrangements people (those folks who show up a year ahead of time to work with the city, law enforcement, etc…) disliked we, the campaign representatives, when we showed up. At some point they had to know the party was going to choose its nominee and decide what it wanted the event to look like, right?

Volunteers helped us paint thousands of signs to hold up during different nights of the convention. Working in the old Spectrum, union painters once stopped by to ask why weren’t paying the standard union wage for the work. Given I was 24 year old bonehead, I’m pretty sure I just stared blankly at them until they left.

I remember Dick Cheney’s speech the Wednesday night of that convention. His remarks contained this refrain, “The wheel has turned, it is time for them to go.” After eight years of Clinton and Gore, the GOP was making the case for something different.

Oy.

Philadelphia 2000 broke even (as did the rest of the campaign.)

In 2008, I was running a ballot measure campaign in Colorado. A friend of mine got me a ticket to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium in Denver. As an old advance man, it was an incredible sight (and site) to behold. The speech was historic, yes, but my lasting memory was a man yelling me and my friend for talking during Sheryl Crow’s set.

Denver 2008 mattered.

I only went to the GOP Convention in Tampa, Florida in 2012 for two days. Got hired on a corporate gig to babysit a hospitality suite. Not bad. I saw Kid Rock in concert (even back then he was one of the few we could get) and there was that really weird deal with Clint Eastwood and the chair. Chalk up a big one to whoever dreamed that up.

Tampa was like the Romney campaign: It came and went, we don’t talk much about it.

In 2020, both party conventions matter. Joe Biden’s campaign did a brilliant, innovative job of creating a format that dealt with Covid restrictions while still imparting the spirit of the party.

Trump’s 2020 convention, on the other hand, was flat out insane (The best is yet to come!) on the one hand and downright anti-democratic and un-American on the other as Trump used America’s backyard to remind the country why he was unfit for office.

Sweet Home, Chicago

National party conventions take a year to put together, and months to program. In a re-election campaign, the White House has plenty of time to decide who they want to speak, how they want the program to flow, and what issues they want to highlight.

Kamala Harris’ campaign has had to do all that work in the space of a month. Reworking the agenda, the speaking line-up and the imagery isn’t simple. All the speeches must be reviewed and rewritten. Some speakers come off the roster, others are added. The traditional ‘bio reel’ for Kamala Harris is probably still in editing and won’t be loaded until about 10 minutes before it runs on Thursday night.

What was expected to be a sleepy affair is now packed with lots of energy and people who want all-access credentials, tickets to parties, and to be treated like grand poobahs despite their role as Deputy Vice Chairman of the Finance Committee for the Smith County Democratic Party. Don’t you know who I am?

Chicago will matter.

News and Notes:

Please check out my appearance on Kara Swisher’s podcast as we discuss this week’s DNC.

See you tomorrow!