St. Paul Notes (VIII Is Enough!)

Last night's liveblogging was an Intertubular freak; the Xcel Center is supposed to be a wifi-free zone during the proceedings, but somehow the gods smiled on your humble correspondent, and I got a couple of hours to throw up some posts. Then, like a summer rain, it was over before you could blink. But I kept on liveblogging the old-fashioned way--in my Moleskin notebooks. Before I head out to the proceedings tonight, here's some of what was written therein:

• I think I see Paul Weyrich wheeling along, looking forlorn and alone. He's the wingnut who co-founded the Moral Majority among other pioneering New Right outfits, then, in 1999, declared in an open letter to supporters, "I no longer believe that there is a moral majority. I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares our values"—and went on to counsel a separatist strategy for conservatives (shades of Todd Palin?) And though he hates Big Government and all its works, he is a huge advocate for bigger subsidizes for Amtrak, because he happens to like choo-choo trains, though not for buses, because he thinks they're gross. Principled conservatism at work.

• 8:33—I just saw my first black person who wasn't on stage, part of the support staff, or a professional athlete.

• You know that great opening paragraph of Moby Dick? The one that begins, "Call me Ishmael.? It continues: "Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off..."—and tonight, I know the feeling. Only the hats are cowboy hats, and they belong to the Texas delegation. They've been doing ever more intricate call and response rituals on every convention floor since 1964, and damn, are they preciously annoying.

• Bumper sticker slapped across plastic "straw" hat: "EVERY DISASTER IS A CHANGE." The owner appears well-pleased with his own cleverness. Get it? Obama—"NObama," around these parts—is for change, but change isn't always good!

• Bumper sticker slapped across back of blue blazer: "STAND UP FOR AMERICA!! BE AMERICAN!!" Guess which colors?

• I ask a fresh-faced lad from National Journal if their glossy program for tonight is up to date, given how they keep on changing the speaker lineup. "They waited until the last minute to print it. But I think it's up to date as of two hours ago."

• 9:07—the obligatory video tribute to Reagan. (Remember in the eighties how the Democrats demonstrated their staleness every season when a bunch of candidates always vied to be the one labeled "Kennedyesque"? That's about where the Republicans are now.) The breathless narration: "America loved their new president. No, of course, they didn't. Reagan's approval rating out the gate were anemic. "Reagan brought unprecedented economic expansion." No, of course, he didn't. "By putting country first, Ronald Reagan saved our America—very NIXONLAND, that "our."

• Fred Thompson is not miked hot enough. The whole thing feels so underwhelming I feel like I'm at a Democratic convention. He sounds older, even, than McCain—who luckily, in the soft-focus stills in the background, is only showed in the bloom of youth. He has "actually governed instead of just talked a good game in the Washington cocktail circuit"—or something. Half-hearted jokes about the "panic" Palin has brought on among the opposition. "She's governed a municipality, and she's governed a state!" Sara and John—"they're "not going to care how much the alligators get irritated, they're going to drain that swamp!" McCain was not just troublemaker at the Naval academy but the leader leader of the troublemakers. Once dated a stripper. When a Democrat goes on stage an brags about another Democrat dating a stripper, apocalypse will indeed be nigh.

• When he says, This is the kind of character that civilizaitons since the beginning of time have sought in their leaders" I expected a much more resounding ovation than that. I was damned excited to be at the Republican convention in 2004 at Madison Square Garden—swept away by the drama and stagecraft despite myself. But I've seen episodes of Dharma and Greg that had me going more than this. He finally gets the crowd going with the promise that, in Iraq, "Now we're winning." Up goes the "USA! USA! USA!" But really should hire seat-fillers to crowd out the empty sections just to the right and left of the stage; they're really off their game this year.

• "...not with a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to America's critics abroad," he reads of a teleprompter. I leave the arena for a respite from the overweening staleness in the air. A pretty woman passes out "JUST SAY NO TO B.O." bumper stickers. Class, nothing but class.

• Really, the only thing I have to say about Joe Lieberman is that someone should remind him that when he makes phlegm-drenched, gutteral noises in the back of his throat between sentences, the microphone picks them up.