The Republicans vs. Anybody But Bush

Page Three

by Jo Freeman

  ... and other Republicans

 

Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans don't hold interest group meetings. They hold receptions. Some are fundraisers, some by invitation only. The MEC had long lists of events hosted by corporations, interest groups and law firms honoring various elected officials and state delegations as well as their own adherents. A lot of corporations paid big bucks to sponsor these parties; some individuals paid big bucks to get in. I sampled a couple.

After the Sunday march several thousand protestors went to the Great Lawn in Central Park to relax, largely because the City had told protest leaders that they couldn't congregate there. I went to the Jewish reception at the Chelsea Piers, where the free food was much better than that at the media party the night before. It was sponsored by The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and United Jewish Communities (UJC).

After signing in, showing all my credentials plus a photo ID, and going through the metal detector and bag search, I heard NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg tell the crowd that he supported George Bush because he "stands up for Israel" just as he "stands up for America" which, he added, is the same the thing.

However, it was Rudy Giuliani who got the standing ovation and cheers from the crowd, many of whom want him to run for President in 2008. Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman put his foot in his mouth when he looked over the audience of several hundred and told them that he hadn't known that there were that many Jewish Republicans in New York City. He obviously hasn't read the election returns from Brooklyn in many, many years.

On Tuesday I tried to find the National Black Republican Leadership Council, but no location was listed in the MEC, and no one I spoke to knew where its event was being held.

I asked Phyllis Schlafly if she was holding her usual convention revival when I saw her at the Platform Committee meeting. I've been to several and find them entertaining and educational. I was closed out of the one in Philadelphia, and she told me I couldn't get into this year's "Life of the Party" luncheon either. Officially sponsored by her Republican National Committee for Life, it honored eight Members of Congress for their pro-life support.

Apart from Schlafly, the far right was staying out of sight, perhaps to avoid arousing the natives. The Christian Coalition, which hosted a standing-room-only rally for 3,000 at the last Republican convention, was nowhere to be seen. The Bush-Cheney campaign held a "Faith, Family and Freedom" rally for Christian conservatives on Tuesday afternoon, but it was by invitation only and closed to the press. Pro-lifers included counter demonstrations at pro-choice events on their list of 22 things to do in NYC, but their numbers were small. Only 37 greeted the pro-choice march as it entered Manhattan after marching across the Brooklyn Bridge on August 28, and I didn't see any outside of the RMC reception or the WISH list breakfast (which were on their to-do list).

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies calls itself the Republican wing of the Republican party. It's "committed to conservative Republicans and works to prevent liberal Republicans from receiving the GOP nomination throughout the nation." At its hospitality suite in a hotel only a block from Madison Square Garden NFRA held daily prayer meetings, several screenings of the movie George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, book signings and tributes to Ronald Reagan. It was open to anyone, no questions asked.

Policy panels are the exception at Republican Conventions, but there were some. The American Jewish Committee held five on ethnic themes (Jews and Indians, Koreans, Latinos, Turks and the Crisis in Darfur). I went to the one on Anti-Americanism, a cozy affair where I didn't even have to sign in, let alone go through a bag search.

The Arab American Institute sponsored a discussion of the Patriot Act at a major NYC law firm, one of whose partners is a founder. Some of his wealthy mid-east clients have had their bank accounts attached or closed as a result of the Patriot Act and they aren't happy about it. Most of the other panelists didn't like major portions of that Act either. Former Georgia Congressman Robert Barr was particularly eloquent in his denunciation of the Patriot Act as a violation of the right to privacy. He said he was one of the few Members of Congress who actually read it.

Inside Madison Square Garden

Despite going through two bag searches and metal detectors along with multiple ID checks before entering MSG, people still smuggled in unapproved messages. The conservative Family Research Council put fortune cookies on every writing press desk. The fortune inside said "Save the Constitution! Impeach an Activist Judge." Perhaps the FRC doesn't know that most federal judges have been appointed by conservative Republican Presidents.

Anti-war activists wore shirts, slips and banners into MSG three of the four nights; they were thrown out when they pulled off outer layers of clothing to show their slogans underneath. Short of requiring everyone entering to do a strip, there's no way the TSA could have prevented their entry.

Film maker Michael Moore was too big to smuggle in. He walked in wearing press credentials. I found him holding a mini press conference in the hallway Monday evening. When I asked whose credentials he was wearing he said U.S.A. Today had hired him to write a daily column on the Republican Convention, as it had hired a conservative to write about the Democrats. "This is a Republican town," he said disingenuously to the people who surrounded him in the hallway. "It's full of very wealthy people who love the Republican Party." Did Sen. John McCain know he was in the stands that night when he referred in his speech to a "disingenuous film maker?"

McCain's speech was part of the Republican effort to soften its image. Both parties try on each other's clothes for the public at their conventions. Moderation and diversity were the Democratic themes that the Republicans put out for public view. The hard right got the Platform; the "moderates" got the podium. However, those moderates are political descendants of Barry Goldwater, not Nelson Rockefeller. Compared to today's social conservatives, Goldwater, who supported a woman's right to choose abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, was a moderate.

The diversity claim came from "an estimated 70 percent increase among minority delegates" leading to "the most diverse group of delegates in party history," according to an RNC press release."In 2004, minorities make up 17 percent of total delegates and women make up 44 percent," it said. The RNC bragged that in 12 states "women represent 50 percent of their delegates."

This claim was based on an average of the surveys done by several news organizations, not an absolute count. I asked a number of sources at the RNC and at the convention to find out the absolute number of women delegates, but everyone claimed not to know. The Democrats know exactly how many women were credentialed as delegates; the Republicans could easily find out by counting the official "roll," or just asking the state chairs. The Republicans could know the number of black delegates if they asked the Joint Center for Political Studies which counted 167, or 6.7 percent of the total. The last time there was anything close to that percentage of black delegates at a Republican Convention was in 1912.

The GOP calculation also lumped the "nearly 5,000" delegates and alternates together, even though the press release said "delegates." The Republican convention has fewer delegates and more alternates than do the Democrats. Women have always occupied more of the alternate seats than those of the delegates. This may also be true of minorities. The CBS/NYT survey of 1,200 of the 2,509 delegates found that 43 percent were women, and 85 percent were white. Among minorities, six percent were black, two percent Asian, and seven percent were Hispanic.

The Republicans were less lavish with their signs than the Democrats. Rather than fields and forests of printed signs waving from the audience, there were little clusters of hand painted ones. These gave the impression of grass roots action, even though they were painted and passed out by convention staff. There were printed signs, but far fewer than in Boston, and none with the speakers' names. A Nation of Courage, A Safer World and Salute our Troops was all they said. On Thursday a few Four More Years were passed out to wave while Bush was speaking.

The second of the two podiums didn't go up until Thursday, and only President Bush spoke from it. Stretching out into the middle of MSG the sight lines were better from seats that could barely see the podium used by rest of the convention speakers and the Presidential seal on which Bush stood was visually impressive.

While Bush was giving his acceptance speech, the audience in back of him twice began to chant loudly "Four More Years." I saw guards remove one person from the floor. I later learned that two anti-war protestors had removed outer layers of clothing to show anti-war messages underneath. One was June Brashares, wearing an alternate badge, who stood on her chair and yelled out "Bush Lied" while unfurling a banner. After she was tackled and hustled off the floor, Jodie Evans of CodePink, took off her dress to reveal a pink slip that said "Fire Bush! Women say bring the troops home now!" Bush would probably have never known what happened if the crowd around the protestors had not chanted so loudly. It was the chants, not the protestors, that stopped his speech while the latter were dragged out of the hall.

Page Four>>

At Berkeley in the Sixties: Education of an Activist, 1961-1965. Jo's history and memoir of being a student at Berkeley in the early 1960's is published by Indiana University Press.

Share: