TAKING AIM AT THE RNC - DISPATCH 1

There’s a dangerous air in St. Paul. I’m not talking about chemical leaks from the local 3M plant, I’m talking about a sickening nervous energy that’s pulsing through “America’s most livable city.” It’s my first day at the RNC, and despite the fact that I saw a female journalist dragged Cro-Magnon style by the cops; this is far from a conventional GOP convention.

New York in 04 was the real deal. In a previous dispatch, I talked about the GOPoPPP, and the Manhattan convention was the ultimate expression of the “say one thing/do another” social club. Take, for example, Club Liberal[1], a once-respectable Midtown hangout transformed by party officials into the definitive late night right-wing fetishfest. After hours of speeches about family values and morals all peppered with racism and a not-so-healthy dose of gay-panic, young male wonks could retire to the Bacchanalian backrooms of Club Liberal and indulge in every "sinful" behavior they spent all day protecting America from. Drugs, sex, violence. Stick your prick into one of those holes in the wall…someone will be there to suck it. Have to take a piss? Retire to one of the restroom’s infamous “shower stalls.” So many images remain burned in my brain to this day, but by far the most sickening was the main event on night two…Sticking it to the Big Apple. The “Big Apple” in question was an overweight Puerto Rican prostitute in a too-tight, crotchless red teddy. I’ll leave it your imagination how many times she had it “stuck to her,” but I think it’s safe to say she didn’t walk home that night. Club Liberal was far crazier than the Limelight at its heyday, far more sinister too…a surreal experience made all the more surreal by the knowledge that these guys were aspiring right wing power brokers by day.

There’s nothing like Club Liberal this year in St. Paul. Nothing I’ve been able to weasel my way into, at least. But I was able to weasel my way into the Xcel Energy Center to witness First Lady Laura Bush’s speech. Less than four minutes by my watch, and nearly every second of it devoted to the Gulf Coast and the Hurricane. The line that struck me to the core: “our first prioty now, today, is to ensure the safety and the well being of those living in the Gulf Coast region.” There was plenty of respectful applause, and I was pretty sure that at least ninety percent of the audience missed the horrible irony of that statement...something more despicable than any of the goings-on at Club Liberal.

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[1] The name of the real place has been changed to protect the guilty.