Liberals, My Ass!

Much of what I know about the Democrats and GOP first came clear to me during the nominating conventions of 2012.....so let me offer reminisce, laughs both harsh and gentle, and a conclusion or two

In 2012, I’d worked for Newsday two years running and proven I could write, if not well, quickly, nurturing a bottomless well of column ideas so patently odd no one else would duplicate them.

That’s crucial at party nominating conventions, where 2,000 journalists strive to make the same point, varying only by regionalized adjectives and positive and negative slants.

The extraordinary multi-Pulitzer editorial cartoonist, Walt Handelsman, was my primary company at both conventions in 2012, and my roommate. (The paper did not insist we shared space, but we enjoyed the summer-camp camaraderie and made each other better by working in close proximity).

We were also joined by editorial writer and Westchester specialist Jerry McKinstry at the GOP convention in Tampa, and Alvin Bessent, the courtly and beloved editorial writer who died a few years ago, at the Democratic convention in Charlotte.

So…..Tampa. Or rather, for the New York Republican Party, long considered the irrelevant and vestigial tail of the national GOP, Clearwater, in a lovely beachside hotel a mere $70 cab ride from the convention center.

Proximity hotels are for swing states first, and states which parties will win, second. The states parties will lose can go pound sand, and count themselves very lucky indeed if that sand is on a beach.

Here’s the thing. In 2012, the Republicans knew they were going to get their asses handed to them by Barack Obama. Worse, they were running behind Mitt “Honey, I Shrunk the Genitals!” Romney, the 2012 version that the GOP base despised, not to be confused with Mitt “Big Balls” Romney, the 2018 never-Trump version that the GOP base … reviled?

But the conventioneers had a great time, the whole time. Even with Tropical Storm Isaac canceling the first day of the party, everybody was in their finery, heels and dresses and hats and bright jackets and flag ties, out every day and night, jubilant to be together, charmed to be American, happy, joyous and free.

This was the convention of Clint Eastwood ranting at an empty chair, Chris Christie in his very largest version, Paul Ryan claiming to notch a sub-3:00 marathon (he only lied by an hour!).

And a Nassau County delegation treating then-County Executive Edward Mangano, mostly bedecked in Bermuda shorts and floral beach shirts, anytime, day or night, like Rico the Pool Boy.

It was weird. But fun. Walt, Jerry and I had, for some reason, started yelling “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo!” any time we caught sight of each other across a crowded space, but then had to quit because too often, just as we yelled it, someone who looked exactly like Mama June, Sugar Bear or HBB herself would suddenly materialize in the crowd to stare daggers at us.

Tampa is like that, as are, often, Republican conventions.

Walt and I also completely misplaced a comp-drink sodden Jerry during a marathon 18-hour Texas Hold ‘Em session at the Hard Rock Casino, and were jubilant when he turned up, green about the gills fundamentally sound, the following night.

We simply hadn’t figured out how to tell our boss, Rita Ciolli, that we lost the newest member of the editorial board.

Thereafter our rallying cry was “WHERE’S JERRY?” and so it remains to this day.

The GOP joyousness was notable, as I said, because they all knew they were going to get beaten like dirty carpets, and because, well…..Mittens!

But hating their standard bearer was not new to the Republicans: the base had absolutely gagged on John McCain four years earlier.

In retrospect, when the backbone of your party hates their titular head two races running, something’s gotta give. Because of that, when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for 2016 and faced off against 17 primary opponents the base hated every bit as much as they had McCain and Romney, I guessed early on that Trump would win the nomination.

(I did NOT guess he’d win the general, nor was I able to claim a refund on my crystal ball.)

So when Tampa wrapped up, Walt and I flew to Charlotte, a sortie that also included us attending a pig picking in Prosperity, South Carolina, with my wife’s family and their friends, memorable for the food, the company, and Walt’s fascination with the real estate prices for rural lakeside McMansions.

We were early, having opted not to fly back to New York between conventions. The first sign that things were about to get going for real was running into Jerry Nadler in our hotel bar, dressed in jeans and a white cotton tee, a picture that cannot be described with even the standard 1,000 words.

Charlotte is a much glossier town than Tampa, where we did not seem to ever see a local without multiple tattoos, much more of a social signifier then than now.

It’s banking, it’s money, it’s youth, it’s barbecue, but on a poutine or over foie gras.

And remember, the Democrats knew they’d win in a landslide.

But as they began to appear in the hotel, what was notable was the….dirge of it all.

The flat stringy long hair of both the men and the women. The mournfully sloganed T-shirts decrying something someone had done to someone else, or refused to do, or never funded.

The utter lack of dress shoes on women or men. The quiet bars, everyone going home to bed after evening convention sessions, not out.

In Clearwater the GOP delegation would get back to the hinterlands hotel at 1 am and demand the manager reopen the kitchen, get the drinks flowing and turn up the music. There were shouted conversations and even one multi-legislator brawl.

Where so recently we had shouted “Here comes Honey Boo Boo!”, now we were shouting “Flats,” to indicate the utter lack of party or dress shoes on any attendee.

The speeches were awesome. Bill Clinton gave one of his best, after which Obama called him his “Secretary of Explaining Stuff!’

Barack killed.

Michelle killed, maimed, folded, spindled and mutilated.

And every night, and every day, in every bar and restaurant and elevator and hospitality suite, the mood was mournful.

The conversation was always about what America and Americans lacked, the needs gone unmet, the sins committed by the splurging rich when they could have instead used those resources to teach self-defense to baby manatees or purchase glamping tents for the homeless.

And we realized…..the Democrats were no longer liberals.

Well, what I mean to say, is…..they are not libertines!

They’d become …. Puritans. Calvinists. Mopey do-gooding (well, TALK about doing good, at least) sourpusses.

They still are, and more so.

But, as my daughter, Beloved Sapling, pointed out, they are also the furthest thing from classical “liberals,” those John Locke-inspired lovers of individual liberties, free-market economics and, often, Scotch!

Where the GOP felt like all the positives and negatives of too much good cocaine, the Democrats hit like mediocre marijuana….compressed Jamaican….a drug giving off a strong feeling one shouldn’t really call “high.”

There is no verve in this version of the Democratic Party, no joy, no pizzazz, no chutzpah. The main leaders, Schumer and Jeffries, are flat and without effect. The Democratic caucuses of Congress are where charisma and hope go to die.

And while the secondary leaders, Sanders and AOC, are marginally more inspiring, they still speak only the language of lack, the language of not, the language of managed decline and shortcomings succored rather than overcome.

The Democrats celebrate vulnerability over achievement, need over excellence, and shortage over abundance.

And they owe their souls and election victories to public-sector unions that no longer serve the public and social programs that too often never achieved any measure of success (the ones that rain down money and free services work, often, but the ones meant to change people or better communities rarely do).

But it’s likely that change is on the horizon for the Democrats, and not far off.

Because they’ve genially despised their standard bearer for the past two elections (or is it three?)

And, well…..we’ve come to learn what that means.