Thursday, Sept. 2 | 8:10 p.m. ET
Deidre Depke: So what does John McCain think about 527s? Yesterday, the Bush campaign filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charging five such organizations with "massive" and "ongoing" violations of election laws. Bush wants an emergency court order to stop their activities. The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill, which barred labor unions, corporations and wealthy individuals from giving unlimited contributions to political parties, is generally viewed as having given rise to 527s--groups like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The bill said that as long as they do not coordinate with candidates, 527s--known for the section of the tax code that governs them--can legally accept unlimited contributions and spend as much as they want to advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. So can we blame McCain-Feingold for the mess? Of course not, says McCain."They are the result of a corrupt and f*ckless Federal Election Committee," the Arizona Republican maintains. "They should live under the same campaign-contribution limits as any political organization." Long-term, McCain says, "we need to reform the FEC or abolish it."
The Bush campaign maintains that it is the Democrats who are using the groups to unfair advantage (never mind that whole Swift Boat thing...). McCain doesn't buy that either. "Both parties are tied to it," he says. "There are clear connections between Democratic operatives and 527s and Republican operatives and 527s."
Thursday, Sept. 2 | 5:44 p.m. ET
Holly Bailey: On Thursday afternoon, Arnold Schwarzenegger literally stopped traffic in Times Square as he made his way to a private luncheon for members of the California delegation at Planet Hollywood. It was a return of sorts: Schwarzenegger was one of the original founders of the celebrity-themed restaurant, but he cut ties with the chain four years ago when it ran into serious financial troubles. Perhaps only the president has more security than Arnold at the convention this week. Just before the California governor's arrival--in a bulletproof SUV, no less--more than a dozen beefy security guards lined a red carpet set up outside the restaurant. At the press entrance, one guard threatened to have two reporters arrested after he accused them of being too zealous in their attempts to get inside to cover the event. More than 50 reporters--including several foreign news agencies--are credentialed to cover Schwarzenegger this week. Around their necks are black laminated badges that read ARNOLD and feature a photo of the governor, arms crossed, wearing a tight white T shirt. Several members of the governor's entourage also wear black jackets that on the back read in large red letters I'M WITH ARNOLD. With the exception of his convention speech, the actor-turned-governor has maintained a low profile this week. He hasn't been to many parties--at least none that have been publicized--and hasn't been granting many interviews to the press. Perhaps coincidentally, organizers of today's lunch cranked up the music on the outdoor sound system to near-deafening levels upon the governor's arrival, which in turn drowned out questions from reporters on the scene. As he worked the rope line, Schwarzenegger ran into several old friends, including Jack Valenti, the outgoing president of the Motion Picture Association of America. The music was so loud, though, that neither one of the men seemed to understand what the other was saying. Finally, Arnold motioned him toward the entrance, seeming to indicate that they'd talk once in the restaurant. After that, he governor turned, flashed a thumbs up to the several hundred people who had gathered to watch the proceedings and went inside.
Thursday, September 2 | 5:03 p.m. ET
Vanessa Juarez: During a forum on "Making America Safer" and "Keeping our Commitments to America's Veterans" held Wednesday, Col. Richard Klass, the president of the Veterans Institute for Security and Democracy (a cosponsor), took on the issue of the Band-Aids with tiny purple heart stickers affixed that had been passed out during the Republican convention at Madison Square Garden (an obvious dig at John Kerry's controversial Purple Hearts). "I believe that everyone who wore that Band-Aid should personally apologize," he said. After his remark, a man in the audience asked whether the other side of the issue would be presented. They went back and forth for a bit. Later, a Vietnam vet named Rick stood in front of the open mic and passionately proclaimed that "There's no other side to the Purple Heart, because no one has the right to denigrate or disparage the Purple Heart." Paul Rieckhoff, a "Making America Safer" panelist, fought in Baghdad for a year and, upon his return, founded Operation Truth, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to educate the public about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan from the perspective of the soldiers. During his speech, Rieckhoff said that neither party has effectively addressed the issues of overextending troops, the deficiencies in veteran's benefits and the unfairness of the "stop-loss" order, which forces troops to remain with their deployed unit despite the expiration of a soldier's term. He also criticized President Bush for postwar planning. "When the president says he can't think of a mistake he's made, I'm outraged. There needs to be contingencies if something happens," he says. "What if Iran and Syria have a secret plan?"
Thursday, September 2 | 4:46 p.m. ET
Michael Hastings: What happens when you get busted protesting? First you get the plastic cuffs, bound very tight behind your back. Then you get shipped to Pier 57, New York City's own temporary internment camp for activists. The next leg of the journey takes you to 100 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan, the courthouse where you'll most likely get slapped with a disorderly conduct citation. (Basically, a step above a traffic ticket.) After about 20 or so hours of lockup, you're greeted outside by the friendly folks from "legal support"--volunteers from groups like the National Lawyers Guild, The Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Legal Collective and the Midnight Special Law Collective. The legal guys get your name (if they don't already have it), catalog any alleged police abuses and talk to you about participating in long-term legal strategies on the part of the protesters. (For instance, joining a suit against New York City to prevent the police from using Pier 57 to house detainees, something the CCR plans to do today because of the allegedly unsanitary conditions at the former transportation depot.)
The whole getting-arrested thing is not as simple as it sounds, as scores of protesters and their legal defenders will testify. The members of the legal groups I spoke with say that about one in five of those picked up by the police didn't do anything wrong. Even worse, they claim, many seem to be innocent bystanders. ("There was guy arrested with us who had just left his hotel room to get a paper," says college student Jack Hamm, busted Tuesday night and released Wednesday afternoon.) The reason for the unfair result: a popular tactic for the mass arrests has been "netting," which basically sounds like what it is. It's a method that makes guilt by physical proximity a prosecutable offense; it's also meant to deter even those who don't want to take part in civil disobedience from even going near a protest. Another complicating factor in the arrest experience: the wide variety of physical and mental injuries that come from spending the night in jail. Complaints range from the trivial (surprise, surprise--the NYPD doesn't serve any vegan meals) to the more severe. Dr. Jeremy Graff, a physician from Oakland, Calif., who came to New York to give medical support to the activists, told me that over a five-hour period last night outside 100 Centre Street, he treated about 10 nasty rashes (most likely from the fluids at Pier 57), a lot of bumps and bruises and one possible broken wrist.
The final complication in the process has been the sheer number of arrests--there have been more than 1,700, the highest number at any political convention in American history. (The previous record: the Republicans' 1972 Miami Beach convention with 1,129 arrests; the infamous 1968 Chicago Democratic convention involved only half as many arrests.) Activists describe the scene inside the jails as one where the police are woefully unprepared: widespread confusion, long delays, inadequate restroom facilities and cramped spaces. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says some of the claims about conditions at Pier 57 are exaggerated and "outright falsehoods. "All arrestees have had immediate access to toilet facilities and drinking water," he said in a press release issued today. "Contrary to another false report, the air quality at the facility is fine and was tested as recently as last night."
The legal groups have been overwhelmed, too. When Hamm called the legal hotline to get help, the harried dispatcher told him: "Good luck. You're on your own."
Thursday, September 2 | 3:33 p.m. ET
Brian Braiker: For a man so concerned about bias in mainstream media, Robert Greenwald was very obliging of one of its minions last night. The lefty director of the documentary "Outfoxed" about the right-wing bias of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire was about to speak at one event downtown before heading north to address a march against the media. "I think they're starting at CBS and then marching down to Fox," he told a NEWSWEEK reporter. "I'm going to leave here at 8:30 because they asked me to be there at 9. So if you want to come with us, we'll cut out at 8:30." After showing a 10-minute clip of his film, which drew hoots and hisses for its subject from the crowd at the nightclub Irving Plaza on 15th Street, Greenwald, his daughter, Leah, and a small entourage cabbed it to midtown, where there was a swarm of protesters clogging the sidewalk along Sixth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets. Greenwald said that in addition to spreading his anti-Murdoch gospel, he was on hand to support the group AlterNet in its legal action to try to prevent Fox News Channel from trademarking its slogan, "Fair and balanced." "There's a good word my grandmother had, called 'chutzpah'," he said with a grin. "It's the ultimate chutzpah that they, the opposite of fair and balanced, would try to trademark it."
The crowd, clustered kitty-corner from Fox News, chanted repeatedly "Shut the Fox up! Shut the Fox up!" as they waved signs and banged drums at their antimedia party, for which they had a permit. (And perhaps mindful of the spate of protester arrests earlier in the week, they buttered up the blue wall of police there with a slightly less loud chant of "Give the cops a raise!") When Greenwald took to the podium, they stopped to listen. "I'm thrilled to be called a smear merchant by Bill O'Reilly," he told them. Behind the podium, his daughter, just out of law school, beamed, "I'm very proud of my dad."
Thursday, September 2 | 2:42 p.m. ET
Karen Fragala: As a denizen of New York City's Lower East Side, I sometimes wish I was born a decade earlier so I could have witnessed the iconic birth of the punk rock movement in the 1970s. But last night, at St. Mark's Church--where legendary punk poet Patti Smith made her performance debut in 1971--I had the chance to relive the grand old days of yore when a throng of revolutionary poets staged a reading in protest of the RNC. St. Mark's Church has been holding events every night this week and also hosts a "wellness center" for protesters. I guess that explains why the grounds of the landmark 19th-century church have turned into a sort of anarchist campground. Trees and fences in the area are lined with homemade signs reading WE DO NOT WANT OR NEED A WAR PRESIDENT and WITHOUT SAFETY NETS FREE TRADE IS WRONG. Groups of protesters (some of whom were old enough to have witnessed the birth of punk rock) sat in small groups civilly discussing politics, plotting their next protest and inquiring about friends who had been incarcerated during the week's demonstrations. Inside the church, a packed house of dissenters sat patiently listening to verse in a room that was so hot and unventilated, I thought I might have seen steam rising up from the floorboards. With a less than adequate sound system, even the words of celebrated poet and performance artist Sapphire evaporated into the din. A crew from National Public Radio was present, but no word yet on their plans to broadcast the night's events.
The festivities were decidedly more luxe at the Billionaires for Bush party on a barge off Chelsea Piers. Ladies in tiaras and sequins cavorted with men in gray flannel, in a style redolent of the decadent 80s, all in sardonic "support" of the Bush administration's fiscal policies. The group has been attracting media attention all week with events such as their Million Billionaire March and a croquet tournament in Central Park. Last night's party was the event of choice for liberal New Yorkers with a strong sense of irony. The barge was packed to capacity, leaving about 100 costumed attendees waited patiently for a chance to dance and drink with the mock elite. Partygoers with aliases like Robin Eublind stayed in character, puffing on cigars and throwing out barbs such as, "Kerry is a traitor to his class." Amelia Anderson, 24, a graphic designer from Brooklyn who wore a debutante gown and rhinestone jewelry commented, "I oppose Bush, and this seemed like a fun way to protest."
Thursday, September 2 | 1:35 p.m. ET
Brian Braiker: Make no mistake: the Constitution is a crowd pleaser. Sure, it doesn't hurt the crowd much when the people reading it are Kathleen Turner, Alec Baldwin, Ossie Davis, Richard Gere and Mandy Patinkin, to name just a few. But at the event coordinated by the People for the American Way Foundation last night, the document upstaged the stars, who took turns reading their assigned section. There was no speechifying, grandstanding or overt politicking at Manhattan's Cooper Union--just the text of an old, old document.
Patinkin, who told NEWSWEEK that he had been coached (and given a history lesson) by director John Sayles before his reading, was stuck with some of the less lively copy of the first Article ("The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to ch[oo]se three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three"). But by and large it was striking how vibrant the old parchment remains. Richard Gere, a normally more outspoken political activist, took to the stage to read Article I, Section III, with a grin and a Kerryesque salute. He drew a hearty round of applause with a winking delivery of Clause 7: "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."
The legal document elicited a lot of clapping, actually. Here were the most popular lines last night: "The Congress shall have Power ... To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years."
"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." [That one was a big crowd pleaser.]
"The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President ..." [Another humdinger.]
"In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, [wild, cheering applause] or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office ... the Same shall devolve on the Vice President." [Applause here devolves to booing. How fickle.]
"... No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Of course, it was no coincidence that the Constitution, as nonpartisan a document as it gets, was being read during the week the Republican National Convention was in town. In the greenroom, stars were happy to offer their two cents on the Bush administration. "We're dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and we feel very strongly that Republicans need a little reminding of the Constitution," Kathleen Turner told NEWSWEEK backstage before she read. "Certainly it's more than speech, but it all comes back to that, doesn't it? This Patriot Act is extremely dangerous to civil liberties."
Actor and activist Ossie Davis, who drew a standing ovation with his booming delivery of the 13th and 14th Amendments banning slavery, told NEWSWEEK that it is important to revisit the Constitution as the republic evolves, and to not take it for granted. "The Constitution is by no means a done document," he said. "We created the Constitution with the one hand but we also created the atomic bomb. And right now, they're on a collision course. I don't know which one is going to win."
Thursday, September 2 | 12:40 p.m. ET
Gersh Kuntzman: Memo to bike protesters: your would-be arresting officer may be two-wheeling it, too. This week, the worst-disguised undercover cops in the city are the beefy guys on mountain bikes. The huskiness is one way to tell that these guys aren't regular bikers. The plastic handcuffs hanging off their belts are another.
Look for lots of softball uniforms, fake "janitor" shirts and Yankee caps. One "undercover" even had a Fox News Channel button. Bikers would be wise to keep an eye out for these barely disguised sportsmen: in addition to hundreds of garden-variety protesters, the NYPD has arrested more than a hundred bikers for violating traffic laws when they go through red lights.
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What do you do when you want to launch a general-interest magazine, but it's the middle of the GOP convention? Why, mold a mashed-potato effigy of Dick Cheney and invite professional eaters to devour it. "Eat Dick! Eat Dick!" the crowd at the Table 50 club cheered at the launch party for Topic magazine. Professional eaters Eric "Badlands" Booker and "Crazy Legs" Conti went boca a boca, starting with the vice president's mushy head. The crowd went nuts when Booker and Conti broke through to Cheney's heart. "There's nothing there," Conti joked. Topic editor David Haskell said the Cheney eat-off was no mere stunt. Spinning like a politician, he said that "Topic will be a magazine that celebrates idiosyncracy--and what is more idiosyncratic than America's greatest competitive eaters eating Dick Cheney made out of mashed potatoes?" Perhaps Whoopi Goldberg could come up with something?
Thursday, September 2 | 12: 35 p.m. ET
Sarah Childress: Was it the calm after the storm? After police arrested 1,187 anti-Bush protesters Tuesday, Wednesday's demonstrations were larger but quieter, with only 19 arrests. The most provocative display? That came from the agitprop group Axis of Eve, where women of varying sizes and ages danced in skimpy briefs and bras printed with slogans such as WEAPONS OF MASS SEDUCTION and GIVE BUSH THE FINGER. Often, with little more than American flags--or strategically placed Purple Heart stickers--to cover themselves, they danced and chanted to drums and a saxophone in Battery Park as the sun went down: "Which side are you on? The panty lines are drawn!"
Earlier protests were less colorful: the Central Labor Council's jam band turned its mass demonstration into more of a party than a protest, as the crowd of union members stretched down seven city blocks on Eighth Avenue, within sight of Madison Square Garden. And this is still a Republican convention in a Democratic city, making verbal skirmishes inevitable. In Union Square on Wednesday afternoon, 978 pairs of combat boots, tagged with the names and ages of American soldiers killed in the Iraq war covered the steps in the park in tribute. As if on cue, a handful of conservative "Protest Warriors" arrived with flags and placards to debate antiwar liberals, both sides stepping carefully around the boots as they made their points. Some were rational--"I'm trying to get your logic here," one antiwar man said. If Iraqis voted for American soldiers to withdraw, he asked, should the troops leave? "If the majority of the Iraqis want us out, that's fine," the warrior replied. "But right now, they don't." Meanwhile, an anxious member of the American Friends Services Committee tried to herd the tense group away from the boots. "Folks, this is a war memorial, not a political debate," he said.
Thursday, September 2 | 12:29 p.m. ET
Mark Hosenball: Coming soon to a movie theater near you ... maybe: a conservative riposte to the controversial Michael Moore film "Farenheit 9/11." An anti-Moore film is being financed and produced for intended cinematic release by Citizens United, a right-wing group headed by David Bossie, a colorful political operative and former congressional investigator who dogged Bill and Hillary Clinton with investigations into their business and private life (and eventually was ousted from his post as a Clinton-scandals investigator after being accused, he said unfairly, of releasing misleading excerpts of prison tape recordings of imprisoned Clinton crony Webster Hubbell).
Bossie's Citizens United is a nonprofit founded by Floyd Brown, producer of the notorious Willy Horton TV ad that helped torpedo the presidential candidacy of 1998 Democratic nominee (and Massachusetts governor) Michael Dukakis. The group claims to raise money from small and medium donors and to not have a network of wealthy financial angels like Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh billionnaire who financed a number of investigations and groups that dug up dirt and circulated nasty stories about the Clintons. A source familiar with Citizens United operations said the group's leadership would "gladly" accept contributions from Scaife or other like-minded Daddy Warbucks if only such largesse were on offer.
Citizens United is being coy about the title of the movie and its contents, though a source close to the group said that it would be about 80 to 90 minutes long. It is partly going to consist of what producers describe as a detailed rebuttal of some of the points in Michael Moore's film--such as his allegations that Republicans stole the presidential election in Florida in 2000--and partly an assault on the record of the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, John Kerry. Among political and media luminaries who apparently sat for interviews for the Citizens United camera are conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes, film critic Michael Medved, former Tennessee senator (and prime-time TV prosecutor) Fred Thompson, former Justice Department officials Victoria Toensing and Barbara Comstock and Kerry nemesis John O'Neill of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In a recent article, Salon.com columnist Joe Conason said he had obtained two outlines for the film's content, one of which apparently contained some caustic humor and a later one which was apparently less amusing. A source close to the production claimed to NEWSWEEK that ultimately the film will be both serious and humorous.
To make the film, which has an estimated production cost of about $1 million, Citizens United listened to pitches from some of Hollywood's (rather miniscule) roster of GOP-leaning filmmakers and eventually chose Lionel Chetwynd, producer and writer of a cable-TV docudrama that lionized President Bush's leadership in the wake of 9/11. In his Salon article, Conason said that Chetwynd was also producing two promotional film mini-biographies, one on Ronald Reagan and one on George W. Bush, to be screened at the Republican National Convention, thus raising new questions about alleged "coordination" between outside political groups (like the Swift Boat veterans) and the Bush campaign. But a source close to Citizens United said that while Chetwynd did indeed pitch the RNC to produce the Reagan and Bush films (and may have actually produced rough cuts), ultimately the GOP chose films by other directors to screen at the convention. There is no coordination between Chetwynd and the RNC on the Citizens United film, a source close to the production maintained. Buttonholed by NEWSWEEK as he circulated inside Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, Bossie declined to discuss the film project in detail, saying editing work was still going on with a release target date in late September. The filmmakers are seeking a national cinematic release for the film, but if that doesn't work out they plan to put the production quickly on CD and DVD. Said Bossie: "I flew in on the red eye this morning, and I'm flying back out there [to Los Angeles] at 7 a.m. tomorrow to finish the film."
Thursday, September 2 | 11:47 a.m. ET
Jennifer Barrett Ozols: Rosario Dawson doesn't want to talk about her arrest during the Sunday protest march. "I'm not doing interviews on this," insisted Dawson, at an event for the New Voters Project, a grass-roots youth-voter mobilization campaign hosted by MTV on Wednesday night. But the actress, sporting a new spiky, bleached-blond haircut, went on to say that for the record she was only playing the role of a masked protester for a scene (which now includes her arrest) in an upcoming movie called "This Revolution," an update of the 1969 film "Medium Cool," which included real footage of the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Dawson added that she and director Stephen Marshall tried to explain to police that they had the permits to film and that she was behaving in character during the march, which required she keep the bandana over her face (nonetheless, though she says police were "very apologetic," the pair was booked on charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration). "My character has her own opinions," said Dawson. And the 25-year-old actress has hers, as well. Namely, that Latinos need to get out the vote. To that end, she has cofounded Voto Latino, a nonprofit activist group that hopes to mobilize young Latino voters, and she was doing her part Wednesday night to convince attendees at the event of the need to bring Latinos to the polls. According to Voto Latino, Latinos are the largest ethnic group in the country but have had the lowest representation at the polls. The group says that in the 2000 elections, only about a third of the estimated 22.9 million voting-age Latinos voted (other researchers have estimated the Latino voter turnout was as low as one fourth of the voting-age population in 2000). "Latinos haven't joined together in the past," Dawson told NEWSWEEK. "I don't want to be another one of those people that bitches and moans but doesn't vote. If you're not participating, how can you call yourself an American?" Voto Latino cofounder Phil Colon has said the group's goal is to get at least 1 million more young Latinos to the polls this year.
Thursday, September 2 | 11: 32 a.m. ET
Holly Bailey: Dennis Hastert doesn't dance--or at least he didn't last night. The speaker of the House was the guest of honor Wednesday at a Recording Industry Association of America party at the Avalon nightclub, which featured performances by Isaac "Chef" Hayes, Trace Adkins and Kid Rock. Hastert introduced Adkins, telling the audience that he often rocks out to the country star when driving his pickup back home in Illinois. Yet when Adkins took the stage, Hastert moved to the front row, where he stood as still as a statue among a throng of gyrating young men and women. Halfway through the Adkins's second song, Hastert turned and walked out, missing Kid Rock's entire performance. Yet the rapper attracted two familiar faces in his place: the increasingly ubiquitous Bush twins, who held court with several friends in the club's DJ booth. At one point, Kid Rock unknowingly had assistance on backup, when the club's DJ allowed Jenna Bush to belt out a few verses of "Freebird" via a wireless microphone in the booth. Both girls seemed to know every word of every single song the rapper performed, and pretty soon, it seemed as though more people were watching them than Kid Rock. Although cameras were banned inside the venue, people ran up to sneakily take photos of the presidential daughters. Others, meanwhile, typed up messages on their Blackberrys and called their friends. "The Bush twins are here," one guy standing next to NEWSWEEK screamed into his phone about midway during the concert. "Yeah, Jenna is really cute."
Eleanor Clift: She doesn't have the bouffant hairdo we're accustomed to seeing, but the woman with the close-cropped cut standing in the kitchen is unmistakably Edie Falco, who plays Carmella, the mob wife on "The Sopranos." "I want to talk to you about the mob," she says. "No, not that mob," she adds, as a series of images promoting the group Mothers Opposed to Bush (MOB) make the point that American families are hurting and the death toll is mounting in Iraq. "Mothers always put their children first," says Falco. "Mr. Bush, can you say the same thing?" The ad debuts Friday on "Larry King Live." Falco was on hand to answer questions at the Tribeca Film Center on Wednesday afternoon. Asked if Tony Soprano, her fictional TV husband, is aware of her political involvement, she said, "Tony knows nothing about my outside activities. This is undercover." MOB was the inspiration of Iris Krasnow of Annapolis, Md., who was making turkey tacos in her kitchen and getting steamed about George Bush on the day after Thanksgiving last year. "What are you going to do about it?" her son prodded. Krasnow called 10 friends who called 10 friends, and today MOB has 11,000 members, including many Republicans. Getting Falco, "the beautiful MOB Mama Supreme," to star in their ad was a coup. Falco had never thought of herself as politically active. "I voted, but never got too intrinsically involved," she said. "I felt one way or the other things were being taken care of. I don't feel that way anymore ... It took me 40 years--OK, 41 years--to realize there's something I can do about this by becoming active." Asked if she were trapped in an elevator with President Bush what she would say, she replied: "I have trouble listening to his voice, so I might just talk nonstop." Not since Housewives for Humphrey have mothers been so mobilized, says Krasnow, a dubious distinction given that Hubert Humphrey lost in 1968. What happens to MOB after the election? "We'll be in business forever," says Krasnow, who says they'll keep the acronym and change the mission to Mobilizing Mothers for whatever seems most urgent.
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Wednesday, September 1 | 11:23 p.m. ET
Rebecca Sinderbrand: "Enjoy your stay," read the large red sign above the road leading out of LaGuardia. For a city where enthusiastic Bush voters can be as hard to find as die-hard Red Sox fans, the initial reaction to his visit was muted. As the caravan drove through Queens, there were no cheering bystanders, no protestors either; just knots of curious onlookers. Some stood inside shop windows and gazed; a small crowd filled a White Castle parking lot and silently viewed the procession. A handful of uniformed servicemen outside an Armed Forces Recruiting Center stood a stiff guard.
Nearer the Elmhurst, Queens, hall where the president planned to address a group of New York City firefighters, the mood seemed to shift. First, a handful of bystanders flashed the motorcade vigorous double thumbs-down. A block later, a group of Nader supporters held up a large banner reading "IMPEACH BUSH-CHENEY." As the president left the motorcade and headed into the hall, he received his first New York greeting of the night: calls of "Bush go home!" and "No more years!"
Inside the Italian-American community center hosting the event, a warmer reception awaited: hearty cheers, and the endorsem*nt of thousands of New York City firefighters. "Four more years!" chanted those inside the hall, in thick New York accents. (The national firefighters union has endorsed John Kerry.) The president reunited with Bob Beckwith, the firefighter he famously stood beside as he addressed workers down at Ground Zero on Sept. 14, 2001. "Bob and I made a famous picture," said Bush. "It was one of those spontaneous moments that happened because of an inspiration greater than mankind. The truth of the matter is, standing up here with Bob is part of the inspiration." He added that seeing the courage of New York City firefighters back then "affected my thinking in a deep way."
Less than an hour later, the motorcade made its way up the East Side of Manhattan to the Waldorf-Astoria. In the city, barricades lined every inch of the way; cops outnumbered bystanders, and the groups lining the route were even smaller than the one in the White Castle parking lot in Elmhurst. There wasn't a single protestor in sight.
Wednesday, September 1 | 7:11 p.m. ET
Christina Gillham: Eighty-two blocks north of Madison Square Garden lies Columbia University, where 36 years ago, the campus erupted in student riots that shook the country. A few months later, violence exploded at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Demonstrations that started as outrage over the university's construction of a new gym in its mostly impoverished neighborhood attracted protesters against the war in Vietnam, racial inequality, capitalism and just about every radical cause you could think of.
But during this year's Republican National Convention, at a time when the country's political divisions are starker than they've been for decades and when hundreds of thousands of people were marching and hundreds being arrested just a few subway stops away from campus, the mood could not be more different.
This is orientation week, and the eager faces of incoming freshman belied any sort of concern about what was going on downtown. Except for one anti-Bush flier posted on a pole at the 116th Street entrance to the campus, there didn't seem to be any other sign of dissent or anger at this once (and still, to some extent) very political institution. Students sat chatting in groups scattered over the university's green quadrangles, or lounged on benches in long conversations on cell phones. Even the Morningside Heights neighborhood where Columbia has its home has transformed itself from a seedy enclave to a genteel neighborhood, where apartments approach the $1 million mark and Starbucks and sushi restaurants abound.
The four cops patrolling the campus seemed to know how unreal all this serenity was. "There's nothing going on here," one told me. "The hard stuff is downtown." Perhaps because he could offer no more interesting information, he then told me he had been called to an emergency downtown, and turned away walking at a much slower pace than an emergency would seem to allow. But maybe all of this calmness is only an act. As one incoming freshman from Florida told me, "I'd go out and protest if I didn't have orientation." He did confide, however, that his mother, who had accompanied him to New York, was downtown protesting while he got settled on campus.
Wednesday, September 1 | 6:24 p.m. ET
Michael Hastings: I caught up with President George W. Bush's parents after the former First Couple took in a matinee showing of the Broadway show "Hairspray" this afternoon. (OK, so I wasn't alone: it was me and handful of other reporters, boxed in press cage on the sidewalk outside the theater on 52d Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue) The sprightly couple liked the musical, "very much," especially the "dancing," said George H.W. Bush. I asked Barbara about her granddaughters risque humor from last night. "I didn't get some of it, obviously," she said, laughing. "We're a family that teases and thinks humor is great." She proved her point by asking me if I'd seen the Broadway show. "Not yet, but I think it won a Tony," I said. "Well, it won a Barbara!" she replied, getting laughs from the press. Back to the twins' speech, the 41st president confirmed he had never watched HBO's "Sex and the City," and said he was extremely proud of his granddaughters. "Somebody is sniping at them today [in the press], but I don't know why. Those girls never liked all the politics, but because of love for their dad, they're out campaigning," he said. (FYI, that's a Bush family talking point.) "Of course, I'm not objective, but I thought they were outstanding." As for the protests? "We haven't heard much about that, we've kind of been living in a cocoon," he said. The hundreds of arrests? "Some guy goes out and raises hell, gets all the cameras on it. But I'm seeing something different. I'm seeing a positive message about the president of the United States." But, really, the most important question of the day: would you recommend "Hairspray" to your son? "I would recommend it to him. I'd think he'd love it."
Wednesday, September 1 | 5:31 p.m. ET
Malcolm Beith: Whatever they're looking for--whether it be a vintage Fender Stratocaster, a cheap sublet, or a no-strings-attached sexual encounter--New Yorkers know where to find it: at craigslist.org. Judging by the abundance of posts on Craigslist's "casual encounters" listings site this week, it seems visiting Republicans have caught on quick. "Republican in town for convention -m4w [man for woman] - 34", reads one subject heading. "English guy living in California in town for the convention," continues the ad, "Looking to hook with hotty. I can host." Another post, under the heading "Republican Perks - m4w - 35" is a little more risque: "I am a Republican looking to meet a female republican who is in town for the convention ... It is also perfectly ok if your hubby/boyfriend watches. Or if he he's at the convention and you need the diversion, that's ok too." Hey, this is New York. And "Republicans want kinky sex too!" as another ad puts it.
It's nice to see bipartisanship in full swing on Craigslist. One 28-year-old male Dem whose "vote is for sale" is looking for a "republican in town or visiting who will convert me to a republican at least for election day." For the most part, it seems that most posters are looking for such a one-off exotic experience with the Other. "Any republican women?" asks one man. "I need to hook up with a Republican this week. Dinner, drinks, both whatever works ... There is plenty of fun to be had!" Some have something to prove, like the 33-year-old self-confessed "Republican in the city" who seeks a "fellow female Republican, or a Democrat woman who wants to see how we republicans are in bed." (He also has a "filthy mind" apparently.) And some posters seem to be trying to recruit for the Log Cabin Republicans, like the 30-year-old "inshape hot gay man" who is extending an offer to all "closeted Republicans" who "feel like takin a ride on the wild side." And in case you forgot, activists need love too, like the 30-year-old female protester from San Francisco who's "feeling the urge" for a "cute NYC activist boy" to indulge her "while reciting the bill of rights."
Of course, some of the Craigslist ads are downright vile (John Ashcroft, avert your gaze) while others are just fakes, more a means of venting frustration at the visitors than getting action. "Republican wives take note," reads one ad from a 28-year-old. "Is your husband too conservative in bed? Worried the South will never rise again? ... Then leave your man at Madison Square garden, and take me back to your hotel room ... Aftewards [sic] you can blame it all on the Zionist conspiracy." Another hits even harder: "Are you a visiting republican? I need some roleplay," writes one gay male. "If you're a delegate from a state like Wyoming which is getting more money per capita to help fight terrorism than NY, even better! I'll come to your hotel. I will dress up as Afghanistan or Iraq (your choice) and you can invade me."
But for all the vitriol, most of the ads are just downright funny. For instance, "lets celebrate the gop convention and party in each others pants/panties. im a great looking naughty bush lover ... I have pics to prove ..." My personal favorite: an ad from a 33-year-old male looking for "sexy Republican women." OK, I'll let that one slide. But he describes himself as a "hip Republican." Please....
Wednesday, September 1 | 4:27 p.m. ET
Eleanor Clift: On Radio Row, liberal talk show host Ellen Ratner was all worked up over a photo that showed Mayor Michael Bloomberg standing behind the podium at Madison Square Garden. The large color photograph conveys the vastness of the hall and the simplicity of the wood podium. But look closely, Ratner urged, there are embedded crosses in the podium. "By golly, she's right," several people confirmed. The way the wood is configured, with light against darker grains, there is the unmistakable outline of not one, but several crosses of varying heights. Ratner asked convention officials if the imagery was intentional, and they said of course not. Delegates that Ratner interviewed had a different impression. They could see the crosses, and they assumed they were there to signal the party's grounding in faith. Not to mention Bush strategist Karl Rove's plan to woo 4 million more evangelicals to the polls in November. Maybe the crosses were an accident of woodworking. Maybe the liberal media is reading too much into the podium. Either way, the crosses are there. See for yourself.
Wednesday, September 1 | 4:19 p.m. ET
Deidre Depke: It's a talking point Republican officials invariably make in convention meetings with the press: "The reason John Kerry has lost ground in the polls is ..." The analysis varies with the message of the moment, but the overall idea being repeatedly hammered home is that polls show George W. Bush gaining ground on his Democratic challenger.
But is that actually true? Not really, says pollster Thomas Riehle, president of Ipsos Public Affairs. He points out that while Bush has made gains in how voters view his handling of some specific issues--particularly related to terrorism and the war in Iraq--the national vote remains deadlocked at 48 percent to 48 percent, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
In barely a month, Bush has surged to an 18-point advantage over Kerry as the candidate voters prefer to lead the war on terrorism, that poll says. Immediately after the Democratic National Convention, Bush held a three-point lead over Kerry on this key measure. And by 52 percent to 44 percent, voters now judge Bush superior to Kerry as the candidate who would be best able to deal with the situation in Iraq, according to the poll. After the Democratic convention, the two were essentially tied. But on other issues such as education and health care, public sentiments remain unchanged from a month or two ago. And overall, a majority of voters--54 percent--say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, unchanged from July.
What movement there has been on the issues may be a good sign for Bush, Riehle says, because when a shift in support occurs, it sometimes shows up initially in these "internal" numbers. "But just because the internals move in your favor," says Riehle, "it's not inevitable that the vote will follow."
Why is the movement occurring now--before Bush's acceptance speech on Thursday night and in the absence of significant news? "If you are an undecided voter with no loyalty toward either side, you are by definition moveable, especially on those internals," Riehle says. "One day you think Kerry's better at making the country safer, the next day you think Bush is. But essentially, you remain undecided."
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Debra Rosenberg: As the rhetoric between conventiongoers and protesters grows increasingly heated (and often unprintable) this week, it was refreshing to find one tiny oasis of civil discourse at the Marriott Marquis. Members of two judicial interest groups met for an old-fashioned debate over the future of the Supreme Court and judicial nominations. The conservative-leaning Committee for Justice--led by former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray and former federal prosecutor Victoria Toensing--faced off against the liberal (and similar-sounding) Alliance for Justice--led by public-interest lawyer Nan Aron and NARAL acting president Betsy Cavendish. The two groups held a similar face-off a month ago in Boston.
Though the two sides disagreed vehemently (but politely) about most everything judicial, both agreed that judicial appointments are one crucial issue at stake in this election. "It's really the sleeper issue of this election," said Aron. "The election will undoubtedly shape the Supreme Court not just for four years but for 40 years." Cavendish suggested that the Bush campaign does not want the public to think about the Supreme Court hanging in the balance. Gray, who worked in the first Bush administration, countered that no one in the Bush campaign has asked him to stop debating this issue in public. And Toensing put more emphasis on the current struggle over lower-level judicial appointments that Senate Democrats are currently blocking by filibuster. "The system for confirming justices has become completely skewed," she said. The filibuster means that a nominee needs 60 votes for confirmation, not a bare majority. "There should be an up or down vote on nominees," she added.
After a few rounds of back-and-forth, the panel took questions from the audience--a collection of GOP delegates who'd wandered in from the hotel hallways and outspoken New Yorkers who'd been resourceful enough to run the security gauntlet outside. If John Kerry won the election and the Democrats took back the Senate, one questioner wanted to know, would the GOP disavow the filibuster as a weapon? "There's no point in unilaterally disarming," said Gray. "It ought to be a two-way street." There was also a spirited debate over whether one Bush nominee, Charles Pickering, had been called a racist by his liberal opponents for reducing the prison sentence of an offender in a cross-burning case. While Cavendish and Aron contended that no one had used the R word, their descriptions of Pickering's record provoked skepticism from the audience. "He had a lifelong career of hostility toward people of color," Aron said. "So what is your point?" called out one spectator. Toensing felt Aron's response had said it all: "I rest my case," she said. At least for a little while, though, political disagreements and politeness managed to coexist.
Wednesday, September 1 | 3:03 p.m. ET
Andrew Cohen: Gewgaws! Gewgaws! Gewgaws! What would a political convention be without campaign paraphernalia festooned with candidate names and affiliations? At this year's RNC, the white-hot center for the buying and selling of souvenirs, trinkets and doodads is the "GOP Marketplace," temporarily established on the second floor of the New York Hilton. There were buttons, pins, hats, bumper stickers, mugs, key chains, sweatshirts, novelty ties, watches, scarves, embroidered golf shirts, commemorative coins, posters, plush toys, presidential trivia books, elephant brooches, patriotic Christmas ornaments, I [Heart] NY cuff links, W ketchup, Republican Cabernet Sauvignon, Sean Hannity DVDs, GWB-in-flight-suit pens, a Barney dog bowl, a bipartisan display case of replica presidential footwear, "Hail to the Chief" George Bush jack-in-the-boxes and, finally, politically themed thong sandals (i.e., John Kerry flip-flops).
One of the exhibitors, Jim Lewis of GopGuys.com, came to New York from Amarillo, Texas, with members of his family to sell fellow Republicans his wares, which included rhinestone American-flag lapel pins ($10) and baseballs with images from the life of George W. Bush ($20). "There are some people here that play both sides of the political [fence] and that's OK," says Lewis. "They're making a living, but for us, it's more than just a business. It's a way of life ... We love doing this, being a part of it. It's a historical event."
Although I own a few items of political memorabilia that span the spectrum from Reagan to Lenin, I saw nothing that made me want to trade away any of my coveted collection of small green portraits of Washington, Lincoln and Hamilton that I carry on me. But I didn't leave empty handed. The National Automobile Dealers Association had a whole table covered with free copies of its Summer 2004 official used-car price guide. Now that's useful.
Wednesday, September 1 | 2:46 p.m. ET
Steve Tuttle: During White House chief of staff Andrew Card's address to the Republican Youth Convention this morning, screaming protesters were literally carried from the floor by security. The GOP is becoming increasingly concerned about the infiltration of Madison Square Garden by unfriendlies. Last night, on the floor directly below Vice President Dick Cheney's box, a female protester launched a verbal assault, screaming at Cheney: "How much money did you make in the war!?" While the vice president, his wife, Lynne Cheney, and seatmate Rudy Giuliani tried to focus on Arnold Schwarzenegger at the platform, Secret Service agents roughly tackled the woman, put her in a headlock and appeared to try to silence her by clamping a hand over her mouth. The effort was unsuccessful. As she was dragged away, she continued to yell, over and over: "How much money did you make in the war!?"
Wednesday, September 1 | 1:40 p.m. ET
Brian Braiker: How do you ask a man to be the last one to stand in a line of 5,000 people? Easy. Hand him a large pink flier that says THE NEXT PINK SLIP MIGHT BE YOURS. From 8:13 to 8:31 on the morning it became known that police had arrested nearly 1,000 protesters in Manhattan since the start of the convention, a quiet, evenly spaced queue of well-behaved demonstrators stretched several miles--from Wall Street to Madison Square Garden. Why? To bring attention to the fact that, by some calculations, 1.2 million people have lost jobs during the Bush administration. "A lot of my friends are unemployed," said Tracy Reid who held her flier above her head at the corner of Canal Street and Broadway in Chinatown. "I have a job, but I don't have to be at work until 10."
Greg Richane, a volunteer with New Democratic Majority, one of the groups that coordinated the "World's Longest Unemployment Line," said people had been showing up as early as 7 a.m. but that there had been no trouble with the cops hovering across the street. "It's a porous line, no one's getting in anyone's way," he said. One police officer walked into the middle of the street, craned his neck down the line, laughed and reported back to his buddy: "It just keeps going!" And keep going it did--Brendan Flynn was walking down Broadway on his way to work, offering words of encouragement to the demonstrators. "I walked from midtown, maybe 45 minutes," he said. "This is probably the most impressive thing I've seen, and I'm a lifelong New Yorker. This is very powerful, much more powerful than those noisy protests."
The sight of pink rectangles held aloft, stretching literally as far as the eye could see in either direction, was in a way beautiful, an installation that would do Christo proud. Rollerbladers and bicyclists cruising down the one-way street held out digital video cameras, filming the length of the line. Some of those in line were young, many of them clearly not unemployed, others were on the older side. "I'm working but I've been cut down," said Godfrey Richard, 81, dapper in his suspenders and straw hat. The architect and artist was standing behind his wife, Emilie, in protest of more than just unemployment. "I'm protesting what they're doing to the country, the whole damn thing," he said of the Bush administration. Several drivers honked in support. Medet Fidan drove his taxi with the lights on, waving his pink flier from the window of his cab.
At 8:31, right on time, volunteer coordinators strolling along the line told demonstrators to put their pink slips in the garbage or throw them away. "If you see one on the street, pick it up just so they have no complaints." Then, with a subdued cheer that ran down Broadway, fliers disappeared, the line vaporized and Broadway went about its business.
Wednesday, September 1 | 12:39 p.m. ET
Jennifer Barrett Ozols: Apparently, celebrity still carries more clout than party affiliation when it comes to drawing a crowd--even in star-studded, left-leaning New York. Largely local fans lined up along a SoHo street Tuesday night to spend a couple of hours tossing back mojitos with actress Angie Harmon and her husband Jason Sehorn--both registered Republicans--at a Rock the Vote event at the French Connection boutique. As the telegenic Harmon--in a jewel-encrusted, red-white-and-blue ring and glittering necklace that spelled out VOTE, along with big, well-teased hair evocative of her home state of Texas--posed on the red carpet outside the store, Sehorn fielded questions from reporters inside. "It's not a right or wrong issue, it's what you believe in," the former New York Giants cornerback told NEWSWEEK of his decision to vote for George Bush. Sehorn said he was there to encourage others to vote as well--even if they voted for the opposition. It doesn't matter who you vote for, he insisted, "What matters is to vote."
Meanwhile, Miss USA 2004, Shandi Finnessey, a 26-year-old registered independent who says she "volunteered" her services to the Rock the Vote folks "as a celebrity to get others to emulate my actions," told NEWSWEEK she was still undecided but, of course, planned to vote come November. Dalton Tanonaka knows how he plans to vote this November, but he was more interested in gathering his own votes this week. The Republican is running for Congress in the largely Democratic state of Hawaii. So, New York didn't feel so different from home? "Actually the atmosphere is much more positive here than I thought it'd be," said Tanonaka, who's challenging Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat who's served in Congress for more than 12 years. "I didn't think New York would be this easy to navigate, or this fun." The 50-year-old Tanonaka, a former CNN anchor, said he felt right at home at the Rock the Vote event, despite the younger crowd. "I play music--I have my own band," he explained, that covers everything from classic rock to Pink. "When I win my race," he added. "I want us to play on MTV."
Wednesday, September 1 | 12:26 p.m. ET
Holly Bailey: For all the hype, the Creative Coalition's gala last night was sort of a bust. The party, held at the Spirit nightclub in Chelsea, attracted a slightly older crowd than the group's gathering in Boston and, as blogged previously, the caliber of celebrities wasn't nearly the same. Not that anyone could actually get a closer look at those Hollywood types. Upon arrival, many of the VIPs were ushered into a separate holding area on the club's second level, forcing the general-admission types to ogle them from afar. While the music was good--entertainment was provided by Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg--the social scene was slightly lacking. In fact, the crowd seemed to include mostly lobbyists, who spent much of the night lobbying each other. Strangely, nobody seemed to be talking about the news of the night, Arnold Schwarzenegger's convention speech. "I didn't really see it," one lobbyist told NEWSWEEK. At one point, the coalition brought all of its celebrity guests on stage to read quotes about freedom of speech. On hand were actors Richard Kind, Tim Blake Nelson, Joe Pantoliano and George Wendt, who seemed increasingly annoyed when audience members interrupted his talk with chants of "Norm! Norm!" And, as promised, 12-year-old Hallie Eisenberg was there, too. At one point, NEWSWEEK ran into the former Pepsi girl near the club's bar, where she was drinking ... a co*ke? When probed about the disparity, Eisenberg simply said, "Huh?" And then she was gone--ushered back into the VIP area by her mom.
Wednesday, September 1 | 10:36 a.m. ET
Debra Rosenberg: Talk about a New York City welcome. Heading into Madison Square Garden last night shortly after 9 p.m., our way was blocked by police barricades. Protesters had grown testy. We tried to bypass the commotion on 33d Street when a man approached and warned us to hide our convention credentials--and to stay in the middle of the street away from the angry mobs on the sidewalks. Several police officers quickly surrounded us. "It isn't all like this," they said apologetically. Protesters booed and shouted obscenities from all sides as we approached. "Go home!! Shame on you!!" (And other stuff we can't print.) Somehow we doubted that telling them we were press would help. We asked our escorts: has it been violent all night? Yes, one said as he helped us safely across a barricaded Seventh Avenue. Protesters have been throwing fruit and applesauce. Thankfully, we escaped unscathed. As we entered the checkpoints in front of the Garden, more of New York's finest greeted us: welcome back, they said.
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Tuesday, August 31 | 11:05 p.m. ET
Sarah Childress: Today was known in protester shorthand as A31--the main day for all direct action and civil disobedience. Protesters had planned to pop up in smaller groups all over the city, then converge on Madison Square Garden, but much of the demonstrations were hindered by mixed messages. "Detention march was from Columbus PARK, not Columbus CIRCLE," read one midmorning text message, followed quickly by, "Where is Columbus Park?" Instead, police corralled most demonstrators in pens at Herald Square and the public library and threatened to arrest any large groups leaving Union Square. At a "Shut-Up-a-Thon" in front of Fox News, police placed and replaced metal pens to keep protesters in line, but nobody seemed to know where to stand. By late afternoon, the masses of protesters who had planned to convene at several locations couldn't regroup quickly enough to avoid police blockades. "This whole big cat-and-mouse game is frustrating for all of us," said one protester earlier, as she dashed downtown from a demonstration in front of Sotheby's to a street party in Union Square. (When the party became a parade of bands marching down the street, police penned in and arrested an unspecified number for demonstrating without a permit.) In another large arrest, police agreed to allow protesters from the War Resisters League to march from Ground Zero to Madison Square Garden but instead herded them into a pen near Wall Street and arrested most of the group. (About 30 white-shirted marchers reconvened away from the arrests, only to be stopped at 28th Street hours later, where they perfomed a "die-in," lying in the street in protest. All were arrested.) By 10 p.m. only a handful had arrived at the main protest pen on Eighth Avenue, wondering where everybody else was. One group was trying to reach them--the exuberantly rag-tag Utopian Street Orchestra--but they stopped their musical march around 20th Street when they learned, via cell phone, that police had made another spate of arrests, and this time had netted their friend.
Tuesday, August 31 | 9:37 p.m. ET
Gersh Kuntzman: The folks from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are getting a reputation for being Klingons--protesters who join other groups' rallies because they know they can't get any coverage on their own. So in the middle of a raucous, drum-beating, Bush-bashing protest in front of the Fox News Channel building in midtown Tuesday, there was a gaggle of PETA activists campaigning for their own presidential candidate, Chris P. Carrot (slogan: "It's a vision thing!").
Carrot dodged several of my questions--and refused to comment on his relationship with a pudgy ear of corn that lingered on the edge of the rally. (Further research revealed that he was none other than Colonel Corn, his vice-presidential candidate.) A PETA campaign aide stood in for the candidate and handed out a pamphlet detailing Carrot's positions (strong on artery-declogging, weak on terrorism, except against animals), but it wasn't enough for me. "What's Carrot's position on ethanol subsidies?" I asked, eyeing that ear of corn. "Ethanol?" she asked. "Is that a vegetable product?" When told that it was, the PETA person said, "Well, then, he's for it!"
Tuesday, August 31 | 9:45 p.m. ET
Arian Campo Flores: Today is apparently the Republican convention's Hispanic Day, with numerous meetings and parties to extend an amorous abrazo to Latinos. It involved plenty of inspirational odes and occasional savaging of the Spanish language. At a gathering of the Bush-Cheney campaign's Hispanic outreach team at the Waldorf-Astoria, a few hundred raucous participants chanted "Viva Bush!" and vowed to galvanize the Hispanic vote in support of the president. Rosario Marin, the former U.S. treasurer, touted Bush's Latino agenda and contrasted him disdainfully with Kerry, "somebody who, like Cristobal Colon [Christopher Columbus], just discovered that there were Latinos in the United States." She closed with a cloying performance worthy of a telenovela--a Spanish-language soap opera--recounting tearfully how the president honored her father, who was a humble custodian, at her farewell party after she resigned from the administration. "The most powerful man on earth paid tribute to this janitor for the work his daughter had done for the nation," Marin said. "That memory will last forever in my heart."
But the true star of the show was the president's gel-coiffed nephew, George P. Bush, who rivaled Chris Heinz as one of the nation's most eligible bachelors until he married several weeks ago. P addressed the crowd in Spanish and English and reminded the audience--as though it were necessary--that his mother, Columba, wife of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is from Guanajuato, Mexico. As soon as he wrapped up his remarks, he was immediately mobbed, eventually slipping away as a young woman in hot pursuit shrieked, "Oh my God, he's leaving!" P was off to another celebration hosted by the Hispanic Alliance for Progress Institute at the Roosevelt Hotel. There, he introduced "my abuelito," George H.W. Bush. "It's hard enough to follow Barbara," 41 said. "Today I have to follow what People magazine called one of the sexiest men alive. Life is not fair."
Tuesday, August 31 | 9:41 p.m. ET
Jennifer Barrett Ozols: Just how wide is the so-called "God Gap"? It may be much smaller than it appears from polls, says Shaun Casey, an assistant professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary. His school sponsored a panel discussion on the topic Tuesday morning near the RNC site. (The gap refers to the notion, reinforced by polls taken by Pew Research and others, that frequent worshippers favor the GOP while nonreligious voters prefer Democrats). Polls usually depend on respondents themselves to report how often they attend a house of worship, says Casey, but studies have shown that those polled often exaggerate their attendance records. "If you include all attendees of church [instead], the 'God Gap' disappears," argues Casey, who joined former White House chief of staff John Podesta (now CEO of the Center for American Progress) and Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, on the "Red God, Blue God II" panel. (The first panel discussion was held during the DNC last month).
There is some data to back the theory that nonreligious voters feel more welcome among Democrats while fundamentalists are more comfortable among Republicans. Cromartie said polls indicate that about 15 or 16 percent of the Democratic base consists of secularists while about the same percentage of the GOP support base is made up of so-called fundamentalist Christians. But as panel moderator and former White House press secretary Michael McCurry put it: "I wouldn't want to build a campaign based on the beliefs of 16 percent [of supporters]." Instead, in such a tight race, both parties seem to be trying to broaden their appeal across religious lines. "The battle for the hearts and minds of [undecided] religious subgroups may well decide this election," said Casey. In the end, no matter how you measure the size of the God Gap, Casey said both parties have a growing awareness of the need to narrow it. "Amen," nodded Podesta and Cromartie.
Michael Hastings: By all accounts, including mine, the NYPD have been doing a bang up job since the RNC came to town. They've been especially good at telling me how many of those pesky protesters have been tossed in jail. It's actually rather hard to keep track, with so many sign-toting and mask-wearing folks trying their hardest to get arrested in so many different(and fun!) places around New York. Luckily, I'm on the NYPD's press release list, so every couple hours, an e-mail pops up, updating the number of arrests and giving me the cop's story line of the day's activity. An example: in a helpful roundup of the day's RNC events yesterday, there was this line: "TRANSPORTATION OF DELEGATES BY BUS FROM AREA HOTELS TO MADISON SQUARE GARDEN FOR THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION TODAY WAS UNEVENTFUL." Exciting copy, no?
It's not always so uneventful, as was the case this afternoon, when the NYPD issued a release looking for "[a] woman wearing the green cap of the National Lawyers Guild" who had witnessed the assault of a police officer at Eighth Avenue and 29th Street last night. Like me, the NLG also is interested in how many protesters have been arrested; unlike me, they don't think the NYPD always does such good job. Now, however, the group, which gives legal support to the protesters, is being asked to help the cops, which poses a bit of an ethical conundrum. Since Friday, about 400 "legal observers" have tagged along at the protests to provide legal advice for the hundreds who planned to get arrested. According to my e-mail from the NYPD, one of the NLG members may be able to identify the attacker. It's not 100 percent sure she was NLG, because anyone who completes the NLG Observer Training course gets the hat, and presumably those hats could be worn by anyone who picks them up. No matter, really. According to the NLG spokesperson, Shonna Carter, the observers don't have any obligation to "report incidents against the police."
Tuesday, August 31 | 3:29 p.m. ET
Rebecca Sinderbrand: "It's the twins!" yelled a cameraman. Photographers and TV crews scrambled to attention as the First Lady and her daughters, Jenna and Barbara, made an appearance on the convention floor Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before they address the GOP delegates tonight. Laura Bush began reciting the Gettysburg address, testing the Garden sound system. She stood there for a few moments then, satisfied, stepped away from the podium. Suddenly, a voice boomed out from a convention skybox, high above the garden floor. "Laura!!" Secret Service agents on the floor craned their necks to find the source. "Laura!!" It was Biff Henderson, the stage manager for David Letterman's "Late Show" bellowing out the First Lady's name as he hopefully gazed from the CBS skybox. Bush didn't respond and Henderson dejectedly withdrew from view. A few moments later he emerged again. Fixing his gaze on the First Lady, he called her name a few more times. But Bush never turned her head.
Tuesday, August 31 | 3:18 p.m. ET
Eleanor Clift: One Republican newly in demand on the political circuit is former Massachusetts governor William Weld. "Kerry being nominated brought me out of my crouch," he said jovially at breakfast with NEWSWEEK Tuesday morning. Weld lost his '96 bid for the Senate against Kerry, had his appointment as ambassador to Mexico under Clinton killed by right-wing Republican Jesse Helms and moved to New York to restart his political career. He was in love with the idea of running for governor in two states, a feat accomplished only once before in history. But that was five years ago, and Weld's interest in the office has waned. New York has bigger mountains metaphorically speaking where Massachusetts has hills, he explained. But in the end, he concluded it wouldn't be different enough to make the run worthwhile. Weld has a restless intellect and is bored easily; he says his attention span in any job is about seven years, so he's due for a change. What's the next new thing? "My public policy juices are flowing," he says. He is candid about wanting a job with the next administration, regardless of who wins in November. His ties with President Bush are excellent. He's played poker with him, and counts him as a friend. Karl Rove did Weld's campaigns in Massachusetts. As for John Kerry, Weld by his own count lost seven of eight debates to Kerry when they ran against each other in '96. He recently reviewed the transcripts of those encounters, and they're "painful reading for me," he says. He was so intent on his next precious thrust that he didn't listen to what Kerry was saying. Kerry won on points. Weld is better positioned to serve in a second Bush administration, but a call from Kerry should he win is not out of the question. "If we could have a beer after the election," which is what they did in '96, Weld says Kerry can have Republicans in his cabinet.
Tuesday, August 31 | 1:07 p.m. ET
Sarah Childress: The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign called it "March for Our Lives." And after initially being turned down for a permit to hold their protest, demonstrators managed to negotiate a route with police during a fairly relaxed rally near the United Nations on Monday night. A few hundred set off down Second Avenue to 23d street, then headed across to Eighth Avenue, and their final destination, Madison Square Garden. The mood was jovial and the crowd energetic, chanting and dancing to drums, with children in strollers and people in wheelchairs leading the procession. One deputy inspector, John Codiglia, joked with the crowd as he kept people moving. Some people even chanted demands to give the police a pay raise.
But the mood shifted as they reached 29th Street. Police had already lined the street with metal pens, blocking the way past 30th Street as it was growing dark. A text message sent out to protesters suggested that they had convinced police to allow a half-hour rally in the pen ahead. As soon as a few handfuls of people entered, police began closing the fourth side of the pen, blocking any more marchers from entering the area. Frustrated, protesters yanked at the barriers from both sides as police tried to keep them in place, shouting for everyone to back away. Just then, a plainclothes officer wearing a Yankees jersey drove a scooter through a small gap in the pens into the crowd. He fell from his scooter on his back, and a protester, leaping forward, yelled, "Get him!" He was kicked several times in the head and knocked unconscious as police in riot gear descended on the crowd, shoving everyone onto the side streets. Protest media coordinators were unsure whether any protesters had been injured. By midnight, police reported three arrests in the area, and 11 for the day. As they were herded away from Eighth Avenue, several were chanting for Bloomberg. "I hope you don't get your raise!" one yelled.
"Sometimes, you're just disappointed," Codiglia said sadly, as he waved seething protesters through another metal barrier. "You're just disappointed."
Tuesday, August 31 | 1:03 p.m. ET
Brian Braiker: Lewis Black, as is his wont, was pissed. Really pissed. "I've been fighting, arguing, for this since I'm 12 and we're still arguing about it? I can't believe this sh*t," the comedian ranted at NEWSWEEK before a Planned Parenthood benefit at Manhattan's Beacon Theater last night. It was a cause, he said, that has "got nothing to do with politics." And to underscore the point, he railed against the Democratic Party for selecting John Kerry as its nominee. "You have a candidate who did everything to lose, and the Democrats can't find anybody who can be five points ahead of him?"
Once the curtain went up, the star-heavy event never veered from its pro-choice script, with liberal speakers, comedians and songsters careful to embrace Republican brethren sympathetic to Planned Parenthood's mission. "Sex is bipartisan, for goodness sake," said Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt after "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon spoke. The evening of music and stand-up comedy had a decidedly retro vibe running through it: It was like the summer of love all over again, without the drugs and, well, fun. Comedian Michael McKean plucked through two surprisingly earnest folk tunes with his wife and step-daughter; Joan Osborne, visibly bulging with her presumably planned pregnancy, and G. E. Smith's band churned through a few technically proficient soul ditties (a faint, distant echo of Booker T. and the MG's).
The show picked up during its second half with Black, channeling Lenny Bruce, as the evening's edgy bright spot. A painfully sincere Moby did his best Neil Young on "Ohio" and feigned surprise that cowboy Republicans, holed up in their Marriotts, were "terrified of a few drag queens in New York City." Lou Reed was on hand in tuxedo pants and a BUCK FUSH T shirt, doing a sullen Lou Reed impression for two songs. (Chuck D sang backup on "Walk on the Wild Side"--you read that right, Chuck D sang backup.) Everyone came back on stage for an all-star rendition of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth." Tres Kumbaya.
But the message was clear. Planned Parenthood wants to appeal to everyone. Rep. Christopher Shays, the moderate Connecticut Republican, had caught the last hour of the show. "I'm surprised there aren't more Republicans for choice," he told NEWSWEEK in a brief interview. He also suggested that the conservative wing of his party may be on the losing side of history when it came to a ban on gay marriages and civil unions. "I oppose any attempt to put into the Constitution any reference to marriage," he said. And while Feldt distributed free copies of her book "A War on Choice" after the show, Roman Buhler stood in front of the theater as it dislodged its guests, handing out fliers for Republicans for Choice. "You don't have to be for higher taxes just because you're pro-choice," he shouted. Most of the crowd stared through him with practiced Manhattan detatchment. But one departing fan, apparently unswayed by the evening's bipartisan spirit, shot back: "Is this the week they let you out of the cage?"
Tuesday, August 31 | 12:20 p.m. ET
Gersh Kuntzman: Put this one in the ever-expanding "irony" file: despite the abundance of patroitic rhetoric from the convention podium, the armed-forces recruiting station in Times Square--where, presumably, a young person would go to enlist after being inspired by the words of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and, um, Rudy Giuliani--is in lockdown mode.
The small post--long a symbol of pride or violence, depending on which convention floats your boat--is being protected by an unbroken perimeter of tightly locked police fences.
As a result, there's not much traffic of willing volunteers, even in the middle of the GOP flag-waving party 10 blocks south.
"Oh, we're still open," said a recruiting officer drinking coffee on what is now a quiet piazza outside the post. "But you have to come over the fence."
Perhaps it's a test of a would-be recruit's mental--and physical--commitment.
Tuesday, August 31 | 12:12 p.m. ET
Holly Bailey: Given the ubiquitous presence of Ben Affleck and other potential US Weekly cover subjects at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, there's been much snickering this week about the GOP's lack of A-list celebrity supporters. Indeed, the roster of celebs hitting the party scene here in New York has so far been strictly--anddeliciously--C-list. Among those spotted partying with Republicans this week: Bo Derek, Ron Silver and Stephen Baldwin, brother of Alec and star of films including "Threesome," "Bio-Dome" and "Half-Baked." All three are on the guest list for tonight's Creative Coalition gala being thrown by that other Baldwin brother, William. While the coalition's Democratic convention party was a mob scene of tabloid-worthy stars--Affleck, John Cusack, Natalie Portman and Leonardo DiCaprio--the party here is set to be less "who you know" and more "Who is that?" Case in point: the list of celebrities "set to appear" according to the group includes a few well-knowns like Sopranos star Joe Pantoliano and Tim Blake Nelson, who starred in "O Brother Where Art Thou." And then there's someone totally random like Hallie Eisenberg. Who? She's the little girl who starred in those Pepsi ads from a few years ago. Eisenberg, who just turned 12, is a Republican. Still, the lack of big Hollywood stars here at the convention may be a moot point. The difference between GOPers and Democrats, on the social scene at least, is that Republicans seem more awed to see someone like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at parties than movie stars. In fact, the biggest celebrities at the convention so far this week aren't from Hollywood at all: they are the Bush twins, York's new It Girls.
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Tuesday, August 31 | 10 a.m. ET
On Monday night, the Lifetime TV network threw a party for the members of W Stands for Women, coalition of President Bush's female supporters. But the party, held at a nightclub near New York University, seemed to attract more men than women by at least a 2-to-1 margin. There, they were given free Glamour magazines, coupons for make-up and goody bags full of nutrition bars specially formulated for women. "Uh, I don't know how I got invited to this," one male attendee, a member of the Pennsylvania delegation, told NEWSWEEK. As guests downed free glasses of champagne and danced to Chaka Khan and '80s pop, some crowded around the club's flat-screen TVs to watch Rudy Giuliani's convention speech. At one point, a woman shrieked. "Oh my god," she yelled to her friends on the dance floor. "He just made Dick Cheney cry! Rudy made him cry!"
Tuesday, August 31 | 12:03 p.m. ET
Andrew Cohen: Monday was my day off, and school hasn't started yet, so I thought I'd take my kids to a nice air-conditioned movie theater. They loved "Shaolin Soccer," so we opted to see "Hero," the new Jet Li box-office hit. Plus, with all the stress and disruption caused by having the Republican National Convention in town, you can hardly ask for more escapist fare than a film about flying swordsmen in ancient China.
We live in New Jersey, but the easiest-to-get-to theater showing "Hero" is on 34th Street in Manhattan, just two blocks from Madison Square Garden. No problem. It's always calm in the eye of the storm, right? Plus maybe the kids would get to see a little bit of democracy in action: demonstrators, delegates, police in riot gear--stuff you usually get to see only on TV. If nothing else, I knew Macy's was open, and I needed a new pair of shoes.
The midmorning bus ride into the city took no longer than usual, through as we came out of the Lincoln Tunnel, NYPD traffic cops immediately directed our bus away from its usual destination. Fine. We'd walk an extra block. The stroll south on Ninth Avenue was uneventful, and we arrived at the theater with time to spare. We were so early that I caved to my children's request for a preshow snack. The second-floor dining area of a nearby Wendy's provided a panoramic view of the convention site. Look at the policeman across the street guarding the underground-parking-garage entrance, kids. He's holding the biggest assault rifle I've ever seen outside of a Schwarzenegger movie. And are those snipers on the roof of the Garden?
The movie itself was remarkably soothing for a martial-arts epic. Between the calming soundtrack and lush cinematography, I was soon asleep. But my kids loved it, even though my son, at 7, is still too young to read subtitles. I roused myself too late to totally make sense of the multifaceted plot (my daughter enthusiastically filled me in later), but I emerged from the theater feeling I'd gotten a needed break from the city's all-pervasive RNCiana.
On our way downstairs, we encountered a trickle of betagged convention types heading up the escalators, culminating in the appearance of former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Here for "Alien vs. Predator"? Not at all. Gingrich & Co. were appearing in one of the theaters in the multiplex for a talk sponsored by the Republican Main Street Partnership, a centrist group, in which he denouncedthe Democrats as the party of "narrow-minded bigotry." In New York this week, even the fantasy world of movies couldn't provide a total escape from the political main event.
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August 30 | 11:40 p.m. ET
Eleanor Clift: Ron Reagan stood amidst a cluster of cameras at Kenneth Cole's Fifth Avenue clothing store, where partygoers sipped Absolut Mandarin co*cktails (a mixture of white cranberry juice, orange seltzer and booze) and tasted tiny samplings of gazpacho in three flavors--avocado, grape and gourd, or green, white and yellow for the uninitiated. Reagan was on hand to promote a new book he helped edit and wrote the forward. It's called "Five Minutes with the President," and it's a collection of short essays by people in the entertainment and media world expounding on what they would say to the leader of the free world if given the opportunity.
It's an instant book in the sense it went from idea to publication in 68 days. The idea came from Joey Pantoliano, better known as Joey Pants, aka Ralphie, the guy who was beheaded last season on the Sopranos. He's a co-president of The Creative Coalition, a non-profit advocacy group for people in the arts. The essayists are eclectic. There's Chris Lawford, actor and Kennedy relative, whom a partygoer describes as "up-market Michael Moore". Hallie Eisenberg, 12, who played Helen Keller in the movie, "The Miracle Worker," is the youngest member of The Creative Coalition. She writes about animal rights. The 55 contributors include many well-known entertainment figures and several media types, including yours truly. Kenneth Cole said his upscale store was the perfect place for a convention party "because I have more platforms than anybody else."
That was a cue for Joey Pants, who grabbed a stiletto-heeled shoe and mimed for the cameras. Asked which president he'd most like to meet, the actor cited FDR, Truman and Lincoln. Reminded that FDR won election four times, Joey Pantoliano wondered whether that could happen in today's political climate. "There'd be Cripples for Truth and they'd say, 'He's not really a cripple--I seen him walk'."
August 30 | 11:35 p.m. ET
Arlene Getz: For weeks, New Yorkers have talked about how the RNC convention would disrupt one of their most sacred rituals: the daily commute. Local newspapers and Web sites have been filled with details about street closures and station changes; suburbanites fretted over plans to close off most exits from Penn Station, sited beneath the conference center at Madison Square Garden. But Day One, at least, brought a pleasant surprise: a quiet ride. While 87 percent of New Yorkers told pollsters they did not plan to leave town during the convention, suburban workers seemed to have opted out.
The first clue: on the North Shore of Long Island, the main parking lot at the Port Washington station--notoriously filled by 6:30 a.m. on a regular weekday--still offered plenty of open spots when the morning's last peak train left at 9:11 a.m. And later at Penn, the stacked loaves of bread at the Hot & Crusty store told their own story. At 7:20 p.m. on the first night of the RNC, the store was still filled with a selection of rye, sourdough, wholewheat and challah. "Usually by this time, we're completely sold out," said manager Norman Gomes. "I've been here for five years; I've never seen it this quiet." Other stores also said business was down. "It's been very slow," said Mark Polle, a clerk at Penn Books. "There are a lot of new faces--not the usual commuters--and they're not buying much." For rush-hour regulars, the station seemed weirdly quiet. Uniformed police lining the walls seemed to outnumber the riders; railroad workers in shirts proclaiming LIRR INFO waited to dispense advice that rarely seemed to be requested. But anyone missing the usual crush need only have ventured outside. There, police at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 34th Street overrode traffic lights to direct cars and buses diverted from their usual routes. The result? Crowds standing 10-deep, waiting impatiently for police to allow them to cross the street.
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If you protest, will they hear you? When one group of demonstrators paraded down 8th Avenue toward Madison Square Garden on Monday evening, the line of cops in riot gear may have seemed their most formidable obstacle. But as the marchers--some wearing T shirts proclaiming POOR PEOPLE'S INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN--carried their placards demanding STOP THE WAR ON POOR PEOPLE, the police line parted to let them through into the barricaded area near Madison Square Garden. Some marchers were in wheelchairs; others carried young children. One toddler wearing only a diaper was carried in his stroller onto the makeshift podium between 30th and 31st Streets. But then the police closed ranks. The single line of NYPD officers were bolstered by a squad of police cyclists, loops of white plastic used as handcuffs dangling from their belts. And those on the stage were cordoned off from their comrades as they delivered their speeches. Their message? That was lost amid the clamor of police motorbikes and the noise from the helicopter circling overhead.
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If he felt like Daniel in the lion's den, Michael Moore certainly wasn't saying so. When the filmmaker--who is at the RNC convention to write a column for USA Today--left the media center to listen to Monday evening's speeches, he was promptly surrounded by reporters asking him if he were nervous about moving among the Republicans he had criticized so profoundly in Fahrenheit 9/11. "Why should I be scared?" he asked. "They're not violent people, are they? Their violence is confined to sending poor and working class kids to Fallujah." Anyway, Moore argued, in spite of its liberal image, New York was hardly enemy territory for Republicans. After all, the city has a Republican mayor (Michael Bloomberg), a Republican governor (George Pataki), it has a death penalty on the books and it is home to Wall Street, which, he noted, generates so much income for party members. "I love talking to Republicans," added Moore. That feeling, though, may not be mutual. When Arizona Senator John McCain addressed the convention later that evening, referred disparagingly to "a disingenuous filmmaker would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." He may not have mentioned Moore by name, but cheering Republicans left no doubt that they got the message.
August 30 | 11:21 p.m. ET
Brian Braiker: In an election as tight as this, not a single potential vote is being overlooked. Consider this: In 2000, it was the Native American bloc that may have been key in handing Al Gore the state of New Mexico by 366 votes. Arizona's Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano makes no bones about the fact that it was an unprecedented Native American turnout that gave her her job in 2002. And this week in New York, 32 of the 2509 delegates to the RNC are Native American. Doesn't sound like much, but it represents a 1,000 percent increase over four years ago, when that number was three. "The parties on both sides of the aisle are increasingly anxious to reach out to tribal governments," says delegate Tom Cole, the Okalahoma congressman who is himself a member of the Chickasaw nation. "Part of that is just pure self interest. Native Americans are not a huge voting bloc, but we lost a Senate seat in Washington because they were very united against us in 2000." And so, the race to woo is on.
But the Republicans still have inroads to make: last month there were 72 American Indian delegates at the Democratic National Convention, according to the Navajo Times. When John Kerry paid a visit to the 83rd Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Pow Wow in Gallup, N.M., earlier this month, he walked away with the endorsem*nt of leaders representing 30 tribes. At the same time, Navajo President Joe Shirley complained that as the head of the largest Indian nation in the country, he had--despite many attempts--failed to gain an audience with President Bush.
John Guevremont is unfazed by this criticism. As chief operating officer for the Mashantucket Pequot tribe--owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino, a $1 billion business--the delegate from Connecticut is an anomaly in Native American country, which is largely impoverished. But he feels his people, primarily concerned with sovereignty rights, should have a natural affinity for the Republican Party and its stated emphasis on smaller government. "Everything that we do is fundamentally centered on the fact that we can govern ourselves," he says. Tribes with social ills are best suited to deal with those ills, he says, not the government. "The tribes that are finding wealth and economic means are also finding that, wow, we have to pay taxes. We know where to apply resources better than the federal government does, and that's what we would like to do."
August 30 | 6:03 p.m. ET
Karen Fragala: So what happened after the mass protest ended in Manhattan on Sunday? We've all heard about how many of the demonstrators made their way to Central Park in spite of the city's refusal to grant them permission for a postmarch rally there. But hundreds of protesters also made their way back to Union Square Park to spend a sunny afternoon holding signs, chanting slogans, and engaging in discourse on a variety of topics. Not everyone was there to protest the G.O.P. convention, and hardly anyone was there to voice support for the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
The mood was decidedly carnivalesque. A group of bongo drummers inspired a throng of barefooted attendants to dance wildly amid the chaos. A performance artist, wearing a shirt and tie, a Bush mask and four-inch platform shoes expressed his criticism of U.S. foreign policy by holding a globe and yelling "mine!, mine!" An exquisitely-illustrated T shirt expressing a similar sentiment was being sold by activist Alida Morgan and her husband, Stephen Dossick, to raise money for MoveOn.org. One shameless self-promoter created a five-foot-high banner that said NO LOVE FOR BUSH and demanded participants pay for the privilege of signing their names on his "artwork." By late afternoon, the canvas was covered with signatures.
As I made my way through the crowd, I chatted with a random selection of attendants. I met Desiree Rodriguez, a grandmother, who works as a pediatric nurse practitioner. Her primary concern was for the United States to "get out of this war and find a way to sustain our lifestyle so we're not dependent on foreign oil." She also wanted to see some progress toward a nationalized health care program. "It is like education--you have a right to it." Ms. Rodriguez said she would be voting for Kerry in November. I also spoke to Colby Hamilton and Daniel Starling from the New York Green Party office. They also wanted to see the immediate withdrawal of troops, but said they would not be voting in November. "Kerry is bad, but George Bush is worse. The answer is a third party." Protester Jerry Hassett of Queens said he would be voting for third-party candidate Ralph Nader. Hassett served in the National Guard in 1963-64 and is dissatisfied with Bush's present treatment of veterans and Kerry's vow to deploy more troops to Iraq. "I'm here to bring humanity back into our country, and I think Nader is the one to do it."
Matt Lewis, a graphics student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn was sandwiched in a homemade sign that bore the logo "Generally disgruntled citizens against Bush." He had a long list of grievances against the Bush administration which included the maltreatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the trend toward environmental deregulation and the "rolling back of civil liberties." He said that he would be voting for Kerry in November. "I think he'll make a good president,' he asserted. Lee McClure, a Manhattan resident who makes a living as an electric flute player and a cab driver said he was present at the rally to protest the war in Iraq, but was ambivalent about voting for Kerry. "Neither candidate is against the war. What does Kerry really stand for?" Tahira Abdurraham, a teacher from Brooklyn said she would be voting for Kerry in November, but added, "If Big Bird was running, I'd vote for him."
August 30 | 2:35 p.m. ET
Christina Gillham: Jogging around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park on a Sunday morning is not usually a political event. In fact the track, made of soft, packed dirt, is one of the most tranquil, least divisive and most democratic of places in New York, a space where all types of people escape the madness of the city with a cathartic run around the 1.58 mile meandering path. The most disruptive thing you might encounter is a group of tourists who plant themselves in the middle of the track to snap pictures of the Upper West or East side skyline that looms in stone splendor above the treeline. New Yorkers love to complain about tourists and in city that is 80 percent Democrat, no one seems like more of a tourist than a Republican.
So when a runner appeared a few Sundays ago sporting a shirt that said TEN OUT OF TEN TERRORISTS AGREE: ANYBODY BUT BUSH, the mood at the track turned nasty. The guy seemed to blow by everyone--as if to say "I dare you"--his pro-Bush slogan drawing subtle stares in its wake. Or maybe he was running so fast because he was afraid of being caught. In any case, it drove my Bush-despising running partner nearly apoplectic. In fact, it prompted her the next day to shop for a Kerry/Edwards T shirt. After a fruitless search throughout the city, she called Kerry's New York campaign office to ask where she could get one. "Nowhere," came the reply. "They've all been sent to the swing states."
Yesterday, the day before the Republican convention was set to begin, the track was nearly empty--a combination of New Yorkers fleeing the convention crowds and congestion, the usual late-August migration, and the incredibly hot weather. No one, Democrat or Republican, could have raced around it in that heat. And anyway, army helicopters flying overhead in a formation of three were a reminder that no matter how fast you ran, events were going even faster. The unusual presence of two burly cops walking along the track made that clear. Somehow on that hot and late summer day, jogging wasn't so cathartic.
August 30 | 2:30 p.m. ET
Holly Bailey: As the Republicans did in Boston, the Democratic National Committee has opened a so-called "response center" near Madison Square Garden. There, party officials have been pumping out press releases, as many as two to three an hour, commenting on President Bush's record and responding to remarks made on and off the convention floor. One of their targets: Sen. Zell Miller, a conservative Democrat from Georgia, who will deliver a keynote address at the convention on Wednesday night. Miller, who heads up Democrats for Bush, has invoked the ire of his fellow Dems, who have tagged him with the nickname "Zellout." Yesterday, the DNC issued a press release questioning why Miller hasn't switched parties. "He's no Democrat," the release said. This morning, the Bush campaign sent out an e-mail of its own: a fund-raising solicitation from the Georgia Democrat urging supporters to make a campaign contribution to Bush. "I have been asked why I don't support John Kerry," Miller says in the e-mail. "The answer is also simple: You can't make a chicken swim, and you can't make John Kerry anything but an out-of-touch ultra liberal from Massachusetts."
August 30 | 12:50 p.m. ET
Sarah Childress: Sunday was a perfect day for protesting: Blue sky, gentle breeze and scorchingly hot. Even though police-protester tensions have been building here for months, the largest protest of the Republican National Convention began with a largely calm procession that, by some estimates, could have numbered 500,000.
They represented a multitude of causes and ideals--but all were united in their desire to bash Bush. In one case, a hippie peacenik and a Vietnam veteran were overheard reaching an understanding: "You were over there doing what you thought was right, ad we were there doing what we thought was right." Then, they fell into step behind the light blue banner: SAY NO TO THE BUSH AGENDA. There was no deviating from that message--indeed, it seemed ridiculous to many even to be asked for elaboration.
Marchers--whose route took them from 23d Street to Union Square Park via the convention center at Madison Square Garden--paused in the Republican zone to boo loudly, but the gesture, although cathartic, was "merely symbolic," as one protester pointed out, because the delegates hadn't even entered the building. But a few handfuls of counterdemonstrators, bearing RIGHT IS RIGHT, LEFT IS WRONG signs, were there to bait them.
Even with few delegates in sight, spin-savvy march organizers knew how to get their message out to a broader audience. Before the procession had even begun to move, protesters were directing photographers to stand on one side of the street, opposite the crowd, so "you can get the shots you want." Many of the demonstrators spent the march on their cell phones, narrating the journey to friends as they went.
Overall, it was surprisingly peaceful and mellow scene, reflecting little of the bitter legal battles fought earlier by the United for Peace and Justice group in its efforts to rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park rather than on the streets of midtown Manhattan. But some tempers, inevitably, did rise with the mercury--and in encounters with RNC delegates. Demonstrators at last month's Democratic National Convention in Boston complained they were forced into a "free-speech zone" that kept them far from their targets. None could argue the same in New York. As Republicans, marked by bright red mesh party favor bags, hustled from theaters to bars and hotels, they were dogged by protesters hurling insults and urging them to go home. "Press release: New York is a Democratic state," one young woman snapped. Nearly every street corner hosted a debate between delegate and demonstrator on Bush's foreign policy--at high volume, with plenty of predictable barbs. "Why did we go to war?" one young Times Square protester demanded. "Why? I'll tell you why," a Republican seethed, turning around to face him. We had no choice!" They stood screaming at each other, nose to nose.
In Times Square, protesters had planned to hassle delegates during intermission at Broadway shows. But police pre-empted many of the demonstrations with a spate of arrests. Officers stretched an orange plastic netting around one street corner, and began arresting everyone within its confines. A hush fell over Times Square as about 40 protesters were cuffed and loaded into paddy wagons and a city bus, including two photojournalists--one of whom wore his credentials on a chain around his neck--and at least one legal observer in a trademark neon green baseball cap. The legal monitors, photographers and independent videographers documented nearly every arrest as protesters shouted that they hadn't been read their rights, and didn't know why they had been arrested. Armed with clubs and threatening more arrests, the law-enforcers eventually chilled the protesters' fiery cries of "police state." A police spokesman said today that 253 protesters were arrested Sunday, mainly for disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration. "Organizers for United for Peace and Justice should be commended for keeping their word," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told a news conference last night. "[The march] proceeded as expected and by and large was peaceful and orderly."
With the march winding down hours after the lead banner stepped off at noon, plans were made surreptitiously--mostly via text message--to "take back" Central Park after the permit battle. Peaceful groups gathered to relax or listen to music, watched over by a heavy police presence. By nightfall, most protesters had left to rest up for Day Two.
Kathy Jones: It may have been the heat. But another reason for the largely unfussed peacefulness of Sunday's mass march seemed to be that the protesters just weren't that, well, young. Sure, there was a mix of all ages. But for the most part, the demonstrators seemed to be a mainstream bunch that wanted to make their point as pointedly as possible. Creative hostility was abundant: FOUR MORON YEARS stated one poster, and shirts declaring "Make Love Not War" featured a Democratic donkey logo atop the GOP elephant logo. But behind the sometimes raunchy slogans was, for the most part, a professional-looking, over-30 crowd that had, unlike other left-leaning protests--a very focused and singular theme summed up in the sign we saw most often: "ReDefeat Bush."
The demonstrators didn't even complain much when thousands of them were corralled at 14th Street, waiting to start the march under a merciless sun surrounded by what they thought were merciless police, trying to make them quit the march by making them swelter until they gave up. (Indeed, those who thought that probably owe the cops an apology: the real reason for the delay was the alleged "anarchists" blocks ahead, who stalled the parade by torching a dragon float outside the convention center.) The anarchists may have had little success in trying to make a hot day hotter, but for many delegates the real problem came when they tried to buy a cooling ice cream along the route--only to find that Baskin Robbins had sold out.
Holly Bailey: On Sunday afternoon, about 500 gay GOP activists gathered for a reception near Madison Square Garden, where, amid martinis and fancy finger food, they bemoaned a party that has been "hijacked" by the conservative right. The Big Tent Party was thrown by the Log Cabin Republicans to celebrate "inclusive" GOP lawmakers who support gay rights, including New York Gov. George Pataki and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not on that list: President Bush, whom the Log Cabin Republicans enthusiastically supported four years ago. Yesterday, the group said they would likely withhold their endorsem*nt this election, in protest of Bush's support for a Constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. Indeed, the event was a rare sign of dissent in what will likely be a highly-choreographed week of party unity. (Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, one of the reception's honorees, noted yesterday that his support for gay rights probably wouldn't help in his tough bid for re-election this year. "But, it's morally correct," Specter said. "In the long run, those who support gay rights will be on the right side of history.")
While there was no implicit Bush bashing, members of the Log Cabin group are upset over the GOP's proposed party platform, which will be taken up by convention delegates today. The platform expresses support for the amendment against gay marriage and also calls for a ban on civil unions. "It's a betrayal," said Patrick Guerriero, the group's executive director. According to the group, about 1 million gay voters supported Bush in 2000. And at the convention this week, about 50 delegates are openly gay.
August 29 | 6:22 p.m. ET
Holly Bailey: Federal officials are taking no chances when it comes to the security of trains headed into New York's Penn Station. Passengers on a Sunday afternoon Amtrak train from DC to New York faced at least three random luggage checks during the duration of the three-hour trip. In addition, travelers were warned that any carry-ons not labeled with a tag showing a name and address were subject to seizure, including computer bags and women's purses. "If something happens to this train, Washington is in real trouble," said one passenger, a lobbyist at one of DC's top law firms. "I think the bulk of the lobbying industry is on this train." Indeed, the passengers included scores of well-known lobbyists, many of whom spent the train ride exchanging party invites and gripes about the rumored hour-long wait for a taxi outside Penn Station. "I'm going to end up walking 20 blocks, I just know it," one said.
August 27 | 1:39 p.m. ET
Elise Soukup: So many tourists, so few theatergoers. Or at least that's the buzz on Broadway about the Republican National Convention. "I Am My Own Wife," is closing for the week and three other Broadway shows--"Caroline, or Change," "Frozen" and "Little Shop of Horrors"--"are closing their doors for good just before the convention starts. And despite the RNC host committee buying out theaters for select plays and several theaters offering discount tickets to RNC protesters, other shows are predicting sluggish sales when the Republicans come to town. But another group of thespians is taking a different strategy: if you can't lure them, protest them. Six New York theater companies have banded together to launch the UnConvention, a theater festival located just two blocks from Madison Square Garden that is intended to protest the GOP's choice of New York City as their convention site. "The Republicans are using the tragic events of September 11 for their political advantage," says festival organizer Randy Anderson, whose original play "KtP," (short for "Kill the President") is one of six plays that will be performed during the festival. Voter registration booths will be planted in the theater's lobby, and each show's playbills will be stuffed with election literature.
Though the festival's technically protesting the site of the convention and not the Republicans themselves--"If the Democrats came to New York City at the end of August, we'd probably do the same thing,"Anderson claims--the unConvention's unlikely to attract a conservative crowd. With guest performances such as "Disgruntled Bit Players in the Lefty Shows," and a running antiwar theme among the six plays, the festival's hardly nonpartisan. Not that the founders wouldn't be happy if some delegates dropped by. "If we get one convert--if we save one soul--we will have succeeded," says Anderson. Still, with tens of thousands of protesters in town for the convention, he's likely to be preaching mostly to the choir.
August 26 | 5: 45 p.m. ET
Steve Tuttle: If one NEWSWEEK editor's experience is anything to go by, Republicans are in for a tough week in New York. On Monday evening, I arrived in the city from Washington to do a little convention advance work. I got off my train at Penn Station and caught a cab to my hotel. When the cabbie asked what brought me to the city, I told the truth: I said "the convention." He turned around, glared at me and said "You get off at next corner!" For a moment I was stunned. I thought he was kidding, but it quickly became he clear wasn't. It was like being beamed into an episode of Seinfeld: "No soup for you!"
Flustered, I explain that I am in town as a journalist, not a delegate; I'm agnostic on the question of Republicans, the president, conventions, the Yankees, Paris Hilton. The cabbie was becalmed and we proceeded, in relative silence, to the hotel. But he was the first person I spoke to. He was my welcome to New York. And yet, somehow, I can't shake the feeling that I got off easy.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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