No, I’m NOT going to the conventions. And you?

Early Saturday morning, I ran into David Stanton of WIS at the Lizard’s Thicket on Sunset in W. Cola. He was having oatmeal, for those who want details.

Anyway, he asked a question I had heard frequently during the last few weeks, "Are you going to the conventions?" (Actually, when you hear it from partisans, the say "convention," singular, because they think there’s only one.)

And the answer was a sad, "No." I had been tentatively planning to go as recently as about three weeks ago. My publisher, in spite of all our cutbacks, had repeatedly expressed the willingness to pay for it (despite the fact that plans to get ad sponsors for the blog to pay for the venture apparently didn’t materialize), but in the end I had to say "no, thanks," mainly because I just couldn’t face Warren and Cindi and tell them I was going to go off and have fun and leave them to figure out how to carry on without Mike or me, either (we’re still in transition on that; we’re getting some more part-time help from the newsroom starting this week, in fact). I had felt bad enough spending those few much-needed days at the beach.

The thing about conventions is that they can be such a blast, but have little immediate, obvious return. The long-term return is huge, because hanging out all hours with the political leadership of your state for a week is sort of like going to summer camp with some of your best (and worst) sources. You just learn an awful lot more about them, and that knowledge pays off. But you don’t find a whole lot of really meaningly stuff to write about in the short term. Conventions are VERY short on substance.

The reason I wanted to go — and had looked forward to going ever since I went to New York in 2004 (I let Mike have Boston that year) — was the blogging opportunity. In 2004, I found things I wanted to write about 20 times a day, although very little that was column-worthy. Just lots of fascinating little tidbits. It was the frustration of having all those urges to write, and having reserved only three column slots that week, that first planted the idea of blogging in my head. I started this blog a few months later, and spent the next four years looking forward to the ultimate blogging opportunity, the 2008 conventions.

But I’m the editor; I’m not supposed to have that much fun. I didn’t go. Ah, well. Maybe next time.

Oh, by the way, back to David Stanton. I said, "No. And you?" Nope. In fact, I don’t think anybody from his station went. He and I agreed that we weren’t missing much of substance, just some good blogging. Sour grapes.

Meanwhile, The State has two people from our newsroom at the convention. Just not me. I know I made the right decision. Maybe at some point in the future it will feel like it.

26 thoughts on “No, I’m NOT going to the conventions. And you?”

  1. Lee Muller

    There is no news content there.
    The conventions have no give and take now. It is all decided before the door opens, so it is just free PR for Obama through a fawning infotainment media.
    If the new business would do its job, and ask some detailed questions about philosphy and concrete plans of action, then they might have something of substance to report.

  2. Brad Warthen

    No, they wouldn’t. The convention offers no substance. The great thing about being there is all of the interesting sidebar conversations and experiences offered, the unofficial interactions that occur at such a gathering. If I had to go to a convention and listen to the speeches and read the platform and other such secular-pious pap, I’d rather shoot myself.
    My wife was watching the convention speeches on TV last night, and I mentioned that the great thing about being there is that you don’t have to listen to this stuff.
    The highlight of the official stuff at the 2004 RNC was McCain’s speech. But even as I was listening to that, I was walking around taking in other sights, sounds and smells. Other highlights included the huge media party Saturday night, seeing “Fiddler On The Roof” on Sunday then running into the counterdemonstrators outside the theater, the antiwar protest on Monday (remember that, Michael?), hanging with Lindsey while he did radio and TV interviews one afternoon, a reception given by a friend of Sanford’s on the Upper East Side, eating at Whole Foods on Columbus Square, chatting with Leona Helmsley’s bodyguards (we stayed in the hotel where she lived), riding the subways everywhere, and listening to Sanford make ironic remarks about his fellow Republicans during Bush’s acceptance speech.
    That’s the kind of stuff I’m missing. I’m a man of eclectic tastes.

  5. mark

    No, I won’t go to either one if you paid me to.
    If I want to watch a bunch of cheerleaders, I’ll go to Williams Bryce Stadium. They’re much prettier there.

  6. guero

    Mr. Warthen obviously missed more than just the sights and sounds of the convention hall.
    Anyone else, or Mr. Warthen, for that matter, notice that NO ONE else in the world thought Michelle Obama had “changed” her husband’s position on the failed adventure of the Bush administration known as the Iraq War?
    Tell us Mr. Warthen, ANYONE, who thinks like you? I know, I know, millions voted for Junior Bush just like you but unlike most of us, you don’t have buyer’s remorse.

  10. bud

    I watched Hillary’s speech last night. It was OK, but really not what I was hoping for. She really needed to go after McSame hard. She really played way too nice.
    I tought of something that could have been very effective. The Dems could have come up with a hat with oversized Monopoly houses pasted to it. Then embazoned on some type of banner could have said, Does John McCain know how many houses he owns? It would have underscored the “out-of-touch” theme that the Dems need to make about the GOP. The Dems have been handed a gift if they will just use it. Sadly, they seem to be all too willing to play nice.

  11. bud

    I would give half my paycheck to see someone at the Dem convention get up and describe in detail how John McCain cheated, repeadily, on his first wife then married a trophy wife worth millions. This whole mantel of the caring, maverick John McCain who reaches across the aisle to serve the people of this country just makes me sick to my stomach. This man is nothing but an opportunist creep who the media has built up as some sort of savior to the working man. The only person this selfish bastard thinks about is himself and his ambition. Why is the despicable story of how he abandoned a women who stood by him for 5 long years so off limits to discuss? John McCain has gotten one hell of a free ride from the press and damn it I’m just plain sick of it. At least the Dems could show a little hubris and go after this creep.
    Compare McCains treatment of his first wife to the loving, devoted marriage the Obama’s have fostered. That should tell you all you need to know about the relative character of these 2 men.

  12. Lee Muller

    Any Democrats who care about marriage should have left the party over the whoring of Clinton and Edwards.

  13. Guero

    Well, Lee, I guess we can call you a Larry Craig, Wide-Stance Republican then?
    When it comes to ‘hos, no Democrat can touch Carroll Campbell, Strom Thurmond, Newt Gingrich, or John Vitter. Thanks for playing, Lee, you make things easy.

  14. Lee Muller

    I am not a Republican, and never supported any of the people you throw up as excuses for Democrat immorality.
    The difference is that Republicans were outraged and did demand that Gingrich, Craig and others step down. Democrats have their creeps speaking at the convention.

  15. bud

    The difference is that Republicans were outraged and did demand that Gingrich, Craig and others step down.
    -Lee
    No they didn’t. Gingrich served a long time as speaker after his shameful ways came to light. And of course our good friend Larry Craig is still squating in the Senate.

  16. slugger

    If you throw enough dirt at anybody, some of it will stick whether it is true or not. It is very true (sad to say) that men have two heads. The larger one makes as many mistakes as the smaller one.
    The the one without sin may cast the stone.

  17. bud

    Not to excuse John Edwards or Bill Clinton but aren’t they still together with the women they cheated on? Yet Gingrinch and McSame deserted their wives when they needed them most. Doesn’t that undercut the GOP’s supposed family values mantra?

  18. Brad Warthen

    See how little good it does me to try to ignore all that Peyton Place stuff — John Edwards, etc. — people just have to bring it up, as if it had anything to do with the election. So it is that we have the Bush haters, who can’t wait to hate McCain, too (and some are getting a head start, you’ll notice), hollering about how he acted 30 years ago when he was a broken fighter jock back from the hell of the Hanoi Hilton.
    And the partisans on the other side respond with John Edwards (a guy whom I dismissed from any sort of consideration over a year ago, and Democratic voters soon agreed with me, thereby making his personal life irrelevant) not keeping his pants zipped, or Bill Clinton’s serial philandering (news flash: he’s not running for president, either, although I’m guessing it will be hard to tell tonight)…
    Then somebody brings up this Larry Craig yahoo — a guy I never heard of in any context other than this hypersordid little scandal of his, and still don’t care about, because his character bears in NO WAY WHATSOEVER upon any political decision that I will ever be called upon to make in my life…
    Don’t you people ever get tired of this complete and utter crap?
    Excuse my French, but I wouldn’t sully a nicer word by using it describing this, um, stuff…
    And besides, my language isn’t nearly as obscene or offensive as the little racist exchange that took place a few comments ago…

  19. Brad Warthen

    And another thing — where, oh where was this Guero guy earlier in the summer when the Left was having a stroke because Obama was, indeed, shifting his position on Iraq, among other things? Bob Herbert, July 8:

    There’s even concern that he’s doing the Obama two-step on the issue that has been the cornerstone of his campaign: his opposition to the war in Iraq. But the senator denied that any significant change should be inferred from his comment that he would “continue to refine” his policy on the war.

  20. Lee Muller

    Obama has at least 6 positions on every issue, depending upon the audience.
    On national TV, he will speak in vague terms about what “the people want”, not what Obama wants, and the non-thinking followers will think they heard him say that he agrees with them.
    Meanwhile the lawsuit challenging Obama’s citizenship presented evidence that he was born in Kenya, not the US.

  21. bud

    So it is that we have the Bush haters, who can’t wait to hate McCain, too (and some are getting a head start, you’ll notice), hollering about how he acted 30 years ago when he was a broken fighter jock back from the hell of the Hanoi Hilton.
    -Brad
    DING, DING, DING. Finally, you get it. Well, sort of. John McCain is not the same man today that he was in the past. No he’s not. He’s very different from the man he was 8 years ago. Why is that so damn hard to see. It’s sooooo obvious. In your own roundabout way you admit what is obvious to all: John McCain has changed.

  22. bud

    Brad, where have you been on this Peyton Place stuff. The GOP has made a living out of touting their ‘family values’ credentials. They are constantly harping on the evils of homosexuality, adultery, drugs, gambling and other assorted sins. They paint the Dems as the party of Sodom and Gamorah. So they have to be called on their hypocricy. Dems would just as soon forget about all this stuff but the so-called ‘family values’ members of the GOP get so much mileage out of it, especially with the religious right, they simply have to respond. How soon you forget all the right-wing smear tactics against Bill Clinton in 1992 over HIS adultery. If it was fair game for him it’s certainly fair game now with McSame.

  23. Lee Muller

    Don’t you mean Bill Clinton’s CONTINUOUS adultery?
    And no, Bill did not get back together with his wife after his sexual abuse of a minor female employee, impeachement and felony plea bargain.
    Hillary is no more a wife than Bill is a husband.

  24. bill

    Think on it Chani: the princess will have the name, yet she’ll live less than a concubine – never to know a moment of tenderness from the man to whom she’s bound. While we, Chani, we who carry the name of concubine – history will call us wives.”

  25. Lee Muller

    Well, since you are posting text from Frank Herbert’s novel, DUNE, maybe have read it, rather than watching it on videotape like Brad.
    Either way, it is a silly attempt to cover your eyes and ears from the fact that Obama is not qualified to hold office in America.

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