Sightings
Jo Freeman: There’s Plenty To Do at the RNC – If You Have the Right Credentials
by Jo Freeman
Every national nominating convention has plenty of auxiliary events, some authorized, some not. Getting space can be a challenge; getting the word out even more so. But they do it nonetheless. Press were given a RNC 2024 Master Event Calendar, which was updated a few days later. Events began on Sunday and ended on Thursday. The actual convention sessions were just one item on the list. The calendar said if an event was Open or Closed to press, and also whom to contact to register. I’m going to describe some of the events, including a couple I went to, and a couple I was turned away from.
Since my focus is on women, I obviously wanted to go to those events – if I could.
The National Federation of Republican Women is the largest grassroots Republican women's organization in the country with hundreds of clubs. Founded in 1938, its members made the phone calls and knocked on the doors that elected Republican candidates for decades. It’s Tuesday luncheon featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders. The Master Calendar said it was SOLD OUT and they wouldn’t let me in. I was able to get into their lounge at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday evening, where I was repeatedly asked if I was a member, and if not, would I join. “I’m press,” I said. “I can’t join anything partisan.” I then said: “What brings you here?” On hearing that, finding anyone willing to chat with me was like pulling teeth.
Moms for Liberty met in a concert hall that afternoon. I had pre-registered, and I got in. From high in a balcony seat I listened to several people talk about the evils of transgenderism. It’s webpage says WE BELIEVE Power Belongs to the People. Sound Familiar? With a focus is on parental rights, it wants to “STOP WOKE indoctrination.”
Tuesday I went to “The New Mavericks” reception co-hosted by the Black Republican Mayors Association and the Georgia Republican Party. They honored Sen. Tim Scott, four Congressmen and two Georgia delegates – all male. There was only one mayor on stage, from Aurora, IL. The chair of the Georgia Republican Party was the one white man on the stage. At that event, women served; they didn’t speak. The RNC reported that 55 delegates to the 2024 convention are Black, up from 18 in 2016.
I missed the Independent Women’s Forum toast to “Women Who Make Our Country Great” because I went to Convention Fest: The Official Delegate Experience, which was held in the streets outside the Fiserve Forum and Baird Hall as well as some space inside Baird. To get to that one you not only needed a credential of some sort, but a USSS pass (which I have).
Concerned Women for America parked its pink bus across from the Baird Center the week before the RNC. No one was home. When Convention Fest opened on Tuesday afternoon, they set up a pink tent, from which its leaders preached to whomever passed by. It calls itself “the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization” but its focus is evangelical Christian. The slogan on the side of its pink bus captures this emphasis: “She Prays, She Votes.” A prayer precedes each sermon.
Jo Freeman's Convention Diary: Organized Women at the Democratic Convention; More Events of, by and for Women Than Any Other Single Group
While women faded into the background at the Republican Convention, they were front and center at the Democrats'. Women were everywhere, and not just sitting in the seats. There were more events aimed at women each day of the Democratic Convention than on all the days of the Republican Convention. more »
Jo Freeman's Convention Diary: Class and Culture at the Republican and Democratic Conventions
Walking around the conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia one could see that there have been many changes in class and culture both inside and outside of the parties in the last fifty years. Many of you remember back in the ‘60s when those of us who marched for civil rights and against the war in Viet Nam were dismissed as bearded beatniks and hairy hippies by working class men. Now they've become what they said we were. more »
Jo Freeman's Convention Diary: Cleveland Had More Police Than Protesters and Philly Was Cop-Lite
We were told that 500 Cleveland police and 2,800 police from elsewhere were keeping the protests peaceful. They slept in the dorms of the local colleges and were moved around in local school buses. These were the friendliest police I have ever seen at a protest. They spoke with the various march leaders as though they were working for the tourist bureau. Only the members of the Pennsylvania State Police were added to the Philadelphia police. While their numbers waxed and waned, police presence in the street was no greater than in a normal protest. more »
After the Louvre: My Favorite Paris Museum, Musee des Arts et Metiers
Founded by anti-clerical French revolutionaries to celebrate the glory of science, it is no small irony that the museum is now partially housed in the former abbey church of Saint Martin des Champs. The museum's collection originated with a selection of mechanical contraptions bequeathed to Louis XVI by the mechanical engineer Jacques Vaucanson, inventor of the most renowned automaton of the 18th century, a talking, flapping mechanical duck. more »
