CLEVELAND, Ohio—I have had an epiphany about all these parties and receptions. The point of going to them is supposed to be that you are able to drink for free. But by the third or fourth fete of the evening, you will have moved on from Bombay to Miller Lite, especially if you are trying to take notes. You see where I’m going with this: You end up spending more on cabs getting from happy hour to happy hour than you would buying a bottle of gin and a case of beer and drinking them wherever you’re staying. But good social drinkers are not utilitarian bores. The goal is not to optimize the ratio between the volume of alcohol consumed and the amount of money spent. We are being intentionally frivolous, thank you.
Alas, my record last night was somewhat disappointing. After beginning on a promising note when I simply walked past the bouncer at a Buzzfeed party to which I had been told a few hours earlier I would not be admitted, I struck out. First I went downtown where, thank goodness, I did not end up having to see Blues Traveler after all, then to a warehouse down by the river, then to an outdoor party where I was able to get one beer before last call. Still, it was a pleasure to run into John Boehner while standing in line at stop number three. The former speaker of the House is one of our greatest living public servants. When I asked him whether he wanted a cigarette, he walked past me without saying anything. I was somewhat confused and more than a bit dejected when I saw him lighting up about 30 seconds later. A friend pointed out that Boehner might have gotten the impression I was some whinging liberal giving him a hard time about his famous habit. Mr. Speaker: If you’re reading this, please note that the bearded fellow in the round glasses and salmon pants was being entirely serious. I would have given you the whole pack.
Boehner is probably the only person I would have happily supplied with tobacco last night. The cigarette situation is getting out of control. I must have given away at least four packs of American Spirit Blues since I arrived here on Sunday night. This is infuriating not least because it is very likely that most of the people who leaned on me make more money than I do. Is that petty of me? It is one thing to help out a friend or a homeless person or a college kid or someone having a bad day. It is another to toss my hard-earned smokes around like candy. That said, if you are a consultant making six figures trying to score cigarettes from a member of the lower-middle-class, here is some advice: Just ask. Do not use dorky or awkward phrases that sound like pick-up lines: "I hate to be that guy, but can I bum a smoke?" and "So, I’ve been trying to quit, but do you mind if I bum one of those off you?" and "That cigarette smells really good. Do you think I could get one?" Like some still-beautiful society spinster living comfortably in her 60s after rejecting the choicest suitors of her generation, I am immune to your charms.
I had the good sense to bring a carton of cigarettes with me. We have all heard about the problem of so-called "food deserts," urban areas in which it is impossible to purchase bread, eggs, and fresh fruits and vegetables. The area of Cleveland around the Huntington Convention Center and the Quicken Loans Arena is a tobacco desert. It’s very unfortunate, and I support the launch of an inquiry from Health and Human Services that would examine the causes and propose possible solutions to this public health calamity.
I suppose I should say something about last night’s speeches, but all that comes to mind is Boehner’s wry visage. He was never more right than when he called Ted Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh." This was not throwaway rhetoric. Readers of Paradise Lost will recognize the Satanic elements in the Cruz character: the hubris, the squalor, the sympathy that you wish you could get away with not feeling, even something in the appearance ("Squat like a Toad, close at the eare of Eve"). You would have to be William Blake to see dignity or honor or even cunning in Cruz’s attempt to show up Trump. His self-satisfied expression as the booing crowd looked on with hatred was genuinely disturbing. Still, for all that, I feel bad for the man. He is trying in his own way to come to grips with the fact that the only thing he has ever wanted in life since he was a teenager is never going to be his.
There was one person I felt worse for last night, a 19-year-old college student wearing a Make America Great Again cape who approached me while I was smoking outside a bar. It’s difficult to say how the conversation got started, but at one point he told me he likes Ole Miss because of the "old money kids" there. When I said I also looked wistfully upon aristocracy, he took the conversation in a radically different direction and asked me whether I was "into NRx," which, I discovered in the course of our discussion, is shorthand for the name of an online white supremacist cult. Here I went into full John Kasich mode:
"No, that stuff is sick," I said. "Let me tell you something. You look like a nice kid. You don’t need to pay attention to those losers."
I don’t think I persuaded him. This fresh-faced lad was able to quote dozens of dodgy-sounding statistics and racist talking points from the top of his head, but he had never heard of Gibbon or Dostoevsky. He also said that he does not believe in God and that Christianity is false because it is "multicultural." He asked me about books and I suggested various apologetics. I urged him to get right with the Lord. Please remember him in your prayers.
My evening ended around 3:30 a.m. at a Denny’s about five miles down the expressway from Free Beacon HQ. Here a colleague and I nearly froze to death. Our waitress told us that the air conditioner was hidden away in a locked office to which no one in the restaurant had access. She also referenced a mysterious acronym: "There is no more CFS." It took a bit to learn that this was not another acronym of a white nationalist group but shorthand for country-fried steak. Also the coffee was not fresh until we were ready to leave. At least our driver let us smoke on the way back.