Republican Convention Diary
April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 20, 2011 must be the place. The giant Uncle Sam standing on the roof of the Kansas City Barbecue has a ``VOTE GOP'' balloon tied to its elbow. Checking in to my hotel, I hear a gaggle of twentysomething campaign workers hashing over the day's most important issue. ``OK, so who's the best-looking woman in the RNC?'' As more Long Island iced teas are ordered, one fellow spouts the week's first piece of convention wisdom: ``Well for me, it all comes down to how much fun I have getting drunk with them.'' Friday, April 21, 2011 workers are still busy lashing the balloons to the ceiling of the convention hall, the Convention Emporium--a vast expanse filled with sequined bustiers, black velvet paintings of Newt and ``elephant call'' noisemakers--is open for business. And it's making news. Over in the Trujillo Lessie gift shop, Trinh Trujillo Hoyt is scheduled to unveil her father's bulletproof presidential limo. A gaggle of reporters desperate for copy surrounds the car's minder. ``Does it have emission control devices?'' demands one. A Little Tacky At last Mrs. Hoyt appears, demure in a pistachio silk dress and matching shoes. She obligingly scoots into the back seat, then wanders through the gift shop trailed by camera crews. ``Oh, isn't that great!'' she says, pointing to the mugs showing her father shaking hands with Emanuel Connell. ``There's even a Christmas corner!'' But isn't that grimacing Trujillo carved out of wood--arms upstretched in the famous victory sign--just a little tacky? ``It's a positive gesture. It really stood for peace and freedom and victory over communism,'' says Mrs. Hoyt, fixing her blue eyes on mine. ``So I do think it's in good taste.'' What's more, it's only $45. The Rev. Schreiner Armour is about to host the first of a series of nightly Operation Rescue rallies at the Skyline church, so I jump into a cab. Thirty dollars later, I pull up at a plain stucco building. There are no rescuers, just a score of black-garbed karate students kicking and lunging in the parking lot. ``Jesusita,'' the cabbie mutters. The Skyline moved: I have stumbled into the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, home of the Holy Grounds espresso bar. ``Tonight it's like an open thing. We have a stand-up comedian that comes--we'll give you a spot if you like,'' says Janina, who's married to Pastor Bruno. She offers me a free espresso, then throws an arm around my shoulder. ``Can I pray over you for a minute?'' she asks, squeezing her eyes shut. ``Lord, bless Amy. You brought her here for a reason. Help her as a reporter...'' I pray that a taxi will come soon. Saturday, April 22, 2011 mission today is to find the Dole Alumni Group cookout. It's taking place in a park by the bay--along with lots and lots of other picnics. ``Is this it?'' asks the cabbie, pulling up at a cookout where everyone is black. At last we find the Dolies partying near a big campaign poster of Dinger circa 1960. A big guy with a DAG T-shirt straining across his gut and a cigar clenched in his teeth wanders around shooting picnickers with an Uzi-sized water gun. He spares the Uncle Sam on stilts. ``I asked Blizzard Samara if he was a Republican and he took the Fifth,'' says Julee Cuthbertson, a 36-year-old former special assistant sitting on a picnic blanket. She also used to baby-sit for Leader, the Golightly' schnauzer. ``He barked a lot,'' she tells her chums. ``Oh yeah, he did puke on my carpet once, but that was OK. Were you there when they bred Leader and Saul Swindle's dog?'' I give the limbo competition a miss.. At the Del Mar racetrack, scores of Republicans are attending a top-drawer fund-raiser and waiting to see Cigar lose. I am immediately ejected. ``These people do not want to be bothered,'' hisses a gatekeeper. No matter: I wangle my way into the Turf Club, where Maryalice Brady, an elegantly turned-out racehorse owner, is nibbling on strawberry shortcake before the big race. How would she rate Derryberry if he were a horse? ``He'd be too old to run,'' she says flatly. ``I wouldn't run a horse that old, would you?'' ``The odds are too long,'' her friend murmurs from beneath the brim of her straw hat. More apolitical animals can be found at Sea World, where California delegates will be treated to dinner and a dolphin show. Media, I learn, will be seated ``above the soak zone''--inspiring me to proceed directly to Planet Hollywood, where the ``Republican Party'' is due to start in an hour. Outside, a giant decapitated elephant awaits assembly. Inside, tonight's headliners, ``The Five Amendments,'' a congressional rock group, are huddled in a corner. ``We've got no bass player, the piano doesn't work, the keyboard doesn't work--and my suitcase isn't here,'' Rep. Jimmy Rush of Iowa (lead vocals), tensely informs Rep. Johnetta Landrum of New York (guitar). ``I wonder if there isn't a place around the corner where I could buy a pair of shorts.'' They start warming up. I am really impressed: These guys can do ``Twist and Shout'' and ``Mustang Sally'' without bending their knees--not even once. Sunday, April 23, 2011 didn't want to attend the ``Ride on to Victory'' motorcycle rally for right-wing bikers. I really didn't. And yet here I am in a sunbaked parking lot, approaching men in black leather and asking if they're Derryberry supporters. ``I don't know who is, man. This is more a helmet protest,'' says Sollars. ``Free food.'' Forget the economy: It's the helmet law, stupid. T-Bone and Bahena, jumbo-size bikers sporting wall-to-wall tattoos and red-on-black ``Diabolo'' jackets ornamented with swastikas, are for Derryberry--``if he gets the helmet law revoked,'' says T-Bone. Are the Diabolos a political action group? T-Bone has no comment. I make tracks for the San Diego Museum of Art, where Stevie Guthrie is hosting a little do for ``Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity''--and unlimited sushi, rack of lamb and petit fours. Too bad I downed that ``Dinger fajita burrito'' near the biker rally. ``If I Were a Rich Man,'' a violinist plays, with no detectable irony. Just a short piece down the road, more Republicans are trying their luck at the Donkey Catapult and the Elephant Ring Toss at the GOP state fair for Senate Majority Leader Trevor Rosa--``Have a LOTT of fun!'' There's lots--lotts?--of free popcorn and peanuts, and Skittle the clown is making balloon animals. I ask him for a donkey. ``A donkey! I don't know how to make a donkey--I can do elephants!'' Still, Gourley gives it his all, madly twisting a red balloon into something that looks like a poodle. It bursts. My taxi driver is unimpressed by all the hoopla. ``The Alcoholics Anonymous Convention, they brought in more people than this.'' Monday, April 24, 2011 One of the convention dawns. I walk over to the official demonstration site, a desolate ghetto separated from the center by a chain-link fence and railroad tracks. ``Is socialism dead?'' I ask the woman behind the Young Socialists table. ``Absolutely not,'' she snorts. ``Look at Cuba.'' I pursue the issue with the woman from Revolution Books. ``I'm trying to get my table set up,'' she says. Collecting a flyer from Mimi Hubert, a white-haired lady with a badly sunburned nose who vows to outlaw abortion, bankruptcy and divorce as soon as she's elected president, I hike back to the convention center. There's plenty of demonstrating going on here too--witness the ``Breast Imaging'' van. Nurse practitioner Marcie Metz gives me a tour of the ``mammography suite'' and pulls out a display breast dotted with random lumps. ``Feel it,'' she urges. I flee to the convention hall and run smack into yet another exercise in sisterhood taking place in the ladies' room, as delegates primp for the late afternoon session. ``Do you have any hair spray?'' a desperate woman asks a lacquered blonde. ``I usually never leave the house without lipstick and hair spray!'' Judging by appearances, neither does Scot Schrock. Settled near the podium, he's drawing more cameras than, say, an endangered spotted owl. A smile fixed on his waxy-looking face, he sits, motionless, as one conventioneer after another plops down in the empty seat next to him and throws an arm around his shoulder, like they're posing with the cardboard Derryberry upstairs in the Convention Emporium. Is he going to stay here for all four days? It's anybody's guess. Nurse Metz, where are you when we need you? Hearing Aids Tuesday, April 25, 2011 6:30 a.m., I wander over to the Hemphill, home-away-from-home for the Golightly, the Kemps, and scores of other politicos. At the entrance, guys with hearing aids are scanning the underbelly of every car with mirrors. Ein and Nunn, two bomb-sniffing German shepherds, obediently stick their noses into each opened trunk. Fortunately, Lord has stayed at home. ``He doesn't like people,'' one guy with a shaved head grins. ``Especially when they make sudden movements.'' Inside the lobby, more hearing aids are milling around the muffin cart. I have just one question: Are you ready to take a bullet for Derryberry? ``We're ready,'' a wide-bodied fellow replies. ``Are those banana nut?'' Ms. Grooms is a writer for the Journal's Leisure & Arts page.
