Convention - Day 1

This was to be the day of speeches from President Bush and Vice President Cheney... because of Hurricane Gustav, and in deference to those being displaced and potential property devastation on the Gulf Coast, pretty much everything was cancelled except the party rules mandated opening procedures.

However, Laura Bush (welcomed like a rock star) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHhdprj3U8E ) and Cindy McCain spoke briefly to appeal to the nation and the convention to assist victims of the gulf coast hurricane through donations and other charitable acts. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOKjKtAVu8Y )

The Delegation itself spent the evening, after the brief business of the convention, assembling 1000 hygiene kits for disaster victims. It was a great way to spend time with the delegation and some local church members to provide service for those in need... Henry Ford would have been fairly proud of our assembly line production of these kits... It was great that we had KSL Radio's Doug Wright and Deseret News columnist Lee Benson and his wife, two members of the media, helping to assemble the kits as well.

Richard Piatt of KSL Television made a special effort to make it back to video our service project, operating the news camera himself. That was pretty nice of him to care enough to go the extra mile. Richard has a deep melifluous and sometimes booming voice.. which serves him well when he is on air.. however, earlier at breakfast, as the delegation was pausing in silent prayer for the Hurricane Gustav victims... Richard's deep, booming voice echoed clearly in the hallway just outside the doorway asking a hotel employee, "could you tell me where the bathroom is?" Sort of broke the moment... and sort of broke me up laughing...

Earlier in the day we made a short visit to Fort Snelling, an outpost first built in 1819 and was in service until the end of WWII. Attorney General Mark Shurtleff sponsored our visit. He is writing a novel about the life of the slave Dred Scott and Fort Snelling has a unique place in Scott's history. It was there that he met and married his wife in what was a sweet story of a love that was made possible by their "owners". If was fun to see the reenactment of a miliary squad and the loading and shooting of black powder rifles.

Each morning we have breakfast with one of our elected officials. But today (Monday) I attended a breakfast with the South Carolina delegation who had none other than the "Architect" Karl Rove speak along with the McCain campaign media (read TV advertising) consultant. He spoke mostly about the Veep pick Sarah Palin and felt it was going to energize the party base and predicted the media would go on the attack... turns out Karl knows of what he speaks. I kidded him about coming back and finishing his degree at the University of Utah where he only lacks a few credits to graduate. We watched some of the McCain TV Ads (and some other politcal ads that were actually pretty funny including one depicting an incumbent Georgia mayor as a giant "King" rat!)