PHILADELPHIA—After two days of rest and relaxation I am totally at ease, ready for Philadelphia and the DNC and everything the two have in store for me. I predicted that Tim Kaine, the Playmobil neoliberal caricature and advocate of women’s ordination to the sacrificing priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, would be chosen by Hillary Clinton as her running mate. If I have my way I shall be able to harass him all this week, security detail or no, asking him whether his "personal," non-legal opposition to murder extends to adults. I also hope to spend time in the company of Bernie Sanders supporters, in my experience far and away the most congenial of any candidate’s.
I spent three hours yesterday in a mixed martial arts arena with Paul Manafort. The food was awful, but there was free beer and wine. After that I helped to close a Ruby Tuesday on I-95 near the new Free Beacon HQ at a nearby hotel. When I went for a cigarette around 10:00 p.m., I was told that I could not go back in because the restaurant wanted to keep out "hoodlums." My attempt to argue that I am not exactly a "hoodlum" was unsuccessful. When my colleagues finally joined me outside, we went to our hotel pool and drank sparkling rosé and smoked in the water till well after midnight.
Before I continue, I should probably wrap up my time in Cleveland. Allow me to begin with a miscellany:
- I was surprised not to see a single person playing Pokémon last week.
- I wonder if whoever cooked my steak on Thursday night was paying homage to Trump. It was black on the top and bottom and something like nickel on the inside, except in the middle, where there were faint hints of brownish pink. I am not a great eater of steak, but when I have one, I like it to be rare.
- I wish the security people hadn’t forced me to throw away the box that my new shoes came in on Monday. The old ones dried out after all and look just fine.
- By my account I only ate four proper meals last week. When I stepped on the scale at home I noticed that I had lost six pounds.
- Our Hungarian landlady in Cleveland is not a fan of Hillary Clinton. "She is like a woman who sells fish at a market in Sicily," she explained to me and three colleagues before enumerating the many of virtues of Viktor Orbán, her native country’s prime minister.
- Not being allowed to go to the Jack Casino in Cleveland because your driver’s license is expired is not a major burden. They do not allow smoking, and the drinks are not free.
- All the bottles of Aquafina at the Cleveland airport were warm, while the Smart Waters were ice cold. This attempt to sod the public was not subtle enough.
What else is there to say? Ever the consummate reporter, I carried a notebook with me throughout my week in Ohio, a notebook I was very fond of. It was the same one I had been using on the campaign trail since the Republican debate in Simi Valley last fall. Unfortunately it is now unusable. I put it on the ground at a Kid Rock concert last Thursday and some buffoon must have kicked a bottle of Coors Light on it. The beer dried before long, but the damage was done. Before that it had been stampeded by a herd of sweaty blue-blazered Young Republican types the moment Mr. Rock took the stage. Factor in my execrable handwriting, and you are left with a primary source that is all but unusable.
A journalistic cottage industry of pieces attempting to explain the rise of Trump sprung up sometime last fall. Most of these had a lot to say about working-class white people, their habits and frustrations and pathologies, especially in post-industrial states like Indiana and New Hampshire. Did anyone ever write one about Trump and Kid Rock ("Are we ready to Make This Motherf—er Great Again?"), a favorite son of another of those states? I am convinced that the former’s success is, if not a direct consequence of the latter’s, at the very least attributable to the same causes. Their personalities are also remarkably similar: both are boisterous, brash, vulgar, and even obscene; both men are braggarts who talk about God as if he were some vague and impersonal but more or less benign First Cause; both of them make people with taste hold up their noses and have fans who would punch someone like me in the face if I tried to explain why "All Summer Long" is one of the worst singles of all time. As it happens, I know Devil Without a Cause almost note for note because my father had it in the truck when I was growing up. The lyrics to "Only God Knows Why" are instructive:
I said it too many times
And I still stand firm
You get what you put in
And people get what they deserve
Still I ain’t seen mine
No, I ain’t seen mine.
It could have been the campaign’s theme song.
I don’t think I have ever watched a nominee’s convention speech all the way through. Trump’s, said to be the longest ever delivered, was a slog for everyone, especially to those of us who had read it already. I crossed my fingers for an improvised reference to abortion after the line about the Supreme Court, but it did not come. I cannot recall any references to the unborn from a headlining speaker all week. Those for whom the abolition of abortion is the most important—in a sense the only—cause have always been a minority on the American right, but I wonder whether the situation is getting even grimmer. RNC fratbro types don’t care about life; neither do those who have embraced Clinton or the libertarians or the moderates from blue states. Is this how John Brown felt about the Whigs? As for gay marriage and the rest, the best I can say is that it was obvious that "LGBTQ" was not a phrase familiar to Trump’s lips; he stumbled over it twice. Nothing made me happier after an hour and a half than hearing the familiar strains of "You Can’t Always Get What You Want" and watching the confetti fall. Is there such a thing as the gawdy sublime? That’s how I would describe it. By the way, did anyone else notice Barron idly kicking a balloon? Poor boy: he looked very sleepy.
I’m going back to Manafort’s hangout tomorrow and plan to check in intermittently all week. Jim Gilmore is going to be speaking there at some point. I also have plans to call Lincoln Chafee, whose personal cell phone number is in my contact list. I have a lot of questions about the recent DNC leak to bring up with the former governor of Rhode Island.