Derek Walter: Final thoughts about the Republican convention

Many have argued that political conventions are a waste of time. A four-day infomercial that is devoid of actual news and simply designed to get free airtime for the party's candidate.

There is some truth to that. The Republican convention speaking schedule, which was collapsed to three days due to Hurricane Gustav, worked just fine. Because the amount of actual business that conventions need to conduct (approving the platform, nominating the candidates) is relatively minor.

In order for such a drastic change, like reducing the convention schedules, both parties would need to sit down and agree to cut down their convention time. So basically don't look for this to ever happen.

And the frenzy over Bristol Palin's pregnancy demonstrates that there is not always enough news coming out of the convention to talk about. This can be bad for a campaign, as it was for the McCain group this week, as the story went out of control. But they did a masterful job of changing the narrative through Sarah Palin's speech and bringing the entire family, boyfriend included, on stage.

A few final thoughts:

The Green Zone

With loony protesters seeking to disrupt the convention, it was understandable that security was tight. But the result was a Baghdad-style "Green Zone" with massive metal fencing blocking off a large swath of land around the Xcel Energy Center. While it made us feel secure, it made maneuvering through downtown St. Paul extremely difficult. The entry points would open and close at inconsistent times. And at one

entrance it was a carnival-like atmosphere filled with sign-waving protesters who had causes that included Bush being responsible for 9/11, Chinese human rights abuses, Chinese human rights abuses, bringing the troops home yesterday, and the obligatory street preacher.

Lost in St. Paul
In the future, I will make sure to pay closer attention to those signs that say "No Re-Entry." While at your average place of business that simply means you need to go back inside the building through a different door, at this convention it means walking around the ENTIRE sealed off area. Thank god for an iphone with GPS.

Corporate influence

While it made for cool parties, the next target of political reform McCain needs to tackle is the corporate money that poured into the conventions. A legal loophole allowed major corporations to spend millions at both conventions this year, and it was rampant in St. Paul-Minneapolis. While I love an ice-sculptured bar and dry-ice martinis as much as anyone, reforming this process would be a good thing for everyone.

Location, location

A request to the Republican National Committee: at the 2012 convention please consider booking a hotel for the California delegation that is slightly less than the 1,000 miles away from downtown we were for this convention. Our delegation hotel was in Bloomington, a suburb that made for a 30-minute (or longer depending on where the protestors chose to gather that day) trek to the Xcel Energy Center each day. While that was not so bad, there were hotels nearly across the street from the arena that was hosting other delegations. It made it difficult to maneuver the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to sightsee. Clearly we need Republicans to win more elections in California (Meg Whitman for governor, anyone?) so we can get some more clout.

Final thoughts

Overall the experience was tremendous. One I hope to repeat and I would urge anyone else, Republican or Democrats, to get involved in the process. You, and our great republic, will be better for it.

Thanks to all who contributed to the conversation (well, at least those who weren't hyper-partisan in their comments). If you want it to continue, feel free to head over to my blog and check out my continued posts.

Derek Walter of Fresno, an alternate delegate and Fresno County chairman of the John McCain 2008 campaign, teaches third graders at Reagan Elementary School and college classes for National University. He also blogs at derekwalter.com.