REUTERS/Mike Segar
Rallying the scoops at RNC
Never ever had the actual personal joys of attending a political convention? So let me count its charming ways:
The rah-rah-sis-boom-bah is big time. Can’t schlep big packages, umbrellas, suitcases, shopping bags into the main arena.
There’s security. Permanently placed bicycles impede walking, plus there’s cop cars, street barricades, trucks blocking turns, wristbands, protests, fights, color-coded everything, badges, photo IDs, metal detectors, chains, dudes with rifles, blockades and pat-downs. Even lampposts wear flowers.
For spinsters who blew the joys of sexhood, it’s great. Why? You get tapped down and felt up more than when you were in high school.
Trust me, for that alone it’s worth becoming a delegate. Cop car processions are constant. It’s like you never left Madison Avenue.
And everybody has a private airplane. No plane? You don’t have a plane? No friend who has a plane? Then you can’t run for anything above alderman. Even Democrats have standards.
Buckeyes wild
And you can’t get anywhere. 2016 the hoo-hah was in Cleveland. Its main zone got locked inside a steel perimeter.
Buses, trains rerouted. An airborne flag read “Hillary for prison.” There was even Indiana State Police.
On my flight were ABC’s David Muir and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Our short schlep from the airport took forever.
Anderson jumped out, told the driver to bring his luggage, ran for the studio and was on camera longer than the cab ride.
I accosted Jeff Zucker, then CNN’s boss, and complained: “You didn’t return my call last week.”
His answer: “Oh, a NY Post columnist can be terrifying.” Then: “We started planning this six months ago. Got lots of people here. Way more than 100.”
And Carl Bernstein’s respectful hello to me? “You still around doing this crap?”
Wall-to-wall strangers. Foreign license plates. Full B&Bs. Arianna Huffington writing Trump’s name on foggy windshields.
And in the book “S — t Politicians Say: The Funniest, Dumbest, Most Outrageous Things Politicians Ever Uttered by Our ‘Leaders,’ ” Newt Gingrich said: “A politician tainted by accepting money from foreign sources is essentially a socialist argument.”
Rep. Peter King: “Listen, with Donald you have to expect some bumps.”
Time to lodge a complaint
In the ’96 Republican thing in San Diego Clinton’s bro Roger was front and center.
His band called Politics also worked another convention in town called Politics. The group was mostly composed of tequila. Their motto: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of margaritas.”
But hotel accommodations were nifty. One day they woke me exactly 6 a.m. Next day 6:15. One problem — I never requested a wake-up call.
Air conditioning? Forget it. No mirror in the john. Only face towels. No opener in the bar. No understanding whythehell I was there. Nothing ever blinked to announce phone messages.
How dudes like Grover Cleveland ever survived, God only knows.
So this time around I’m not at the RNC.
I’m going to stay right here at home in New York with the traffic, crime, congestion, thieves, robbers, shut shops, delivery guys, mopeds, bicycles, closed hospitals, roaches, ants, mice, robbers, heat wave — and Democrats. It’s safer.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.