{"id":1488,"date":"2004-07-29T19:52:45","date_gmt":"2004-07-29T23:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/07\/29\/back-from-the-floor\/"},"modified":"2004-07-29T19:52:45","modified_gmt":"2004-07-29T23:52:45","slug":"back-from-the-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/07\/29\/back-from-the-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Back from the floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Just returned from the floor of the convention hall here.  Sheer
\nmadness, just above the level of slightly organized chaos.  (As
\n“press,” bloggers can check out floor passes for an hour.  There’s
\nthis whole hierarchy of pass colors<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I wandered around the California and Massachusetts delegations (my home
\nand my current residence states) for a while, during Calif. Sen.
\nBarbara Boxer’s speech to the convention.  Just so they get some
\nname credit (I’ll write more about our conversations later), I talked
\nwith Lisa Mead (the mayor of Newburport, Mass.), Michael Lysobey,
\nDavids Bliss, and Emily Weinstein of California.  <\/p>\n

All of the Californians are fairly new not only to California politics,
\nbut to being part of political or civic associations in general. 
\nThey all said that they had grown concerned with the shape of foreign
\npolicy under the Bush administration, and, to a lesser extent, various
\ndomestic issues (stem cells, economic policy, and governmental
\nsecrecy).  So, from being fairly uninvolved a year ago, they
\ndecided to do something.  And now they are delegates.<\/p>\n

Mead’s a bit different.  This is her third DNC, and she used to be
\nfield director for John Kerry, so she’s personally acquainted with the
\ncandidate, describing him as “strong, big-hearted, and smart<\/span>.” 
\nMost impressive for her about the convention was last night’s parade of
\nretired generals who support Kerry because of the direction military
\npolicy has taken under the Bush administration.  In reference to
\nformer JCS Chair John Shalikashvili’s speech last night and the retired
\ntop generals who supported Kerry on stage: “Here we have a general
\nwho’s been Chair of the Joint Chiefs, fought in wars, and served
\nseveral presidents, and he’s supporting Kerry.  And to have these
\neight or nine generals support Kerry, you just don’t see that very
\noften with retired generals.  That speaks volumes about the
\ncurrent administration.”<\/p>\n

All that aside, the floor gives off an incredible vibe.  People
\nare packed in chock-a-block (even when it looks empty on TV or from up
\nhere in the balcony, it’s still extremely busy), with reporters, TV
\ninfotainer journalists, delegates, national politicians, poster brigade
\nmembers and security all moving seemingly randomly. <\/p>\n

The “bowl” is the center of the beehive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just returned from the floor of the convention hall here.  Sheer madness, just above the level of slightly organized chaos.  (As “press,” bloggers can check out floor passes for an hour.  There’s this whole hierarchy of pass colors.) I wandered around the California and Massachusetts delegations (my home and my current residence states) for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[661],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deeencee"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-o0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}