Tom Tomorrow

It was a peaceful clusterfuck

It's like the old parable about the blind men and the elephant, except I suppose a donkey would be more appropriate. And instead of three blind men, you've got 15,000 journalists, most of whom can't get anywhere near the donkey, but all of whom are determined to describe it nonetheless.

Some go the easy route: one night outside the Pepsi Center I walked past a TV reporter stating with great confidence, "and lots of delegates in party hats!" Which wasn't exactly a piercing insight for the viewers of whatever local news station she was broadcasting to. But on some level you had to admire the honesty of it: "I have absolutely no idea what to say about this clusterfuck! Back to you, Biff!"

Not that there has been any lack of media narratives, of course. I'm catching up on them belatedly—the thing about political conventions is that you're in the center of the media bubble, yet have absolutely no idea what the media are saying. At least that's true when you're there on a shoestring with no operational support and your only access to cable TV is to stand around in the crowd by the two-story MSNBC broadcast structure (set up in a parking lot a half mile from the convention center, but with a great view of Union Station in the background). Apparently the cable newsies were playing up the PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) business. Looking back through the week's newspapers, I see that Maureen Dowd witnessed a convention full of bitterness and anger and backstage scheming—or more accurately, that's what the hacks she talked to told her she was seeing as of her Tuesday night filing deadline. One of her named sources for the column was GOP strategist Mike Murphy, who I think I saw walking around one night, but then thought, "Why would GOP strategist Mike Murphy be here at the Democratic Convention?" And now I know the answer: To help frame Maureen Dowd's narrative.

From my perspective, little of this alleged anger was in evidence. Admittedly, I wasn't exactly operating from a fully staffed newsroom and I'm sure I missed a lot, but I just didn't see the hopeful fantasies of the commentariat being fulfilled. For instance, there was a lot of exciting babbling earlier this season about the possibility of a brokered convention, but seriously, was there ever any real chance that Hillary Clinton was going to come out the night of her speech, disregard the Teleprompter, and say, "Okay motherfuckers, we're in it to win it"? I don't think so. But it did give people whose job is to flap their lips on television something new to flap their lips about.

(As for Rush Limbaugh's wet dream of riots in the streets of Denver—I can't even tell you how laughable that was. There were scattered protests, but overall, out on the streets, this was beyond any doubt the most peaceful, low-key convention I've ever witnessed, in stark contrast to reports out of St. Paul, where more than 50 protesters were arrested, including radio talk show host Amy Goodman.)

But you know what? Even if Maureen Dowd is right, and Bill and Hillary Clinton were secretly plotting backstage like characters out of whatever pop culture reference Maureen Dowd has most recently compared them to—well, none of that was in evidence on the stage. The actors all performed the roles required of them, and if there was some backstage grumbling about it, well, I have news for you: People who perform on stages do not always like each other in real life. But the show must go on, and this was, after all a show—and the more I think about it, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. We're human beings. We like shows. We like spectacle. We like gathering in large crowds and cheering for our side. It's just something we do, and why should political conventions be any different?

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Convention speeches are the centerpiece of the show, but maybe it's more useful to think of them as songs—they lull us, they soothe us, they rouse us. They sing to us what someone has decided we need to hear, and ultimately the words matter less than the melody. Michelle Obama sang a song of reassurance at the beginning of the week, and Barack Obama came out at the end and captivated a crowd of 84,000 with a solo performance that was simultaneously hopeful, transcendent and outraged, and the collective emotion and energy of the crowd became palpable in the air. Yes, he's still a problematic candidate for progressives—that FISA vote wasn't his finest moment, and there's the recurrent refrain from this convention that he will end the Iraq war "responsibly," a worrisome qualifier. Whether he will really live up to the promises inherent in his melodies remains to be seen. But despite all of that, I'll tell you this: For anyone who's been horrified by the excesses and atrocities of the past eight years, Invesco Stadium was an astonishing and joyous place to be on that night.

And despite the prayers of that preacher from Focus on the Family who "jokingly" called upon his God to let loose a torrential downpour the night of the event, it didn't rain a drop—though as of this writing, the Republican Convention has been overshadowed and disrupted by Hurricane Gustav. Make of that what you will.