Relationships and Going Places
Jo Freeman: There’s Plenty To Do at the RNC – If You Have the Right Credentials
by Jo Freeman
Every national nominating convention has plenty of auxiliary events, some authorized, some not. Getting space can be a challenge; getting the word out even more so. But they do it nonetheless. Press were given a RNC 2024 Master Event Calendar, which was updated a few days later. Events began on Sunday and ended on Thursday. The actual convention sessions were just one item on the list. The calendar said if an event was Open or Closed to press, and also whom to contact to register. I’m going to describe some of the events, including a couple I went to, and a couple I was turned away from.
Since my focus is on women, I obviously wanted to go to those events – if I could.
The National Federation of Republican Women is the largest grassroots Republican women's organization in the country with hundreds of clubs. Founded in 1938, its members made the phone calls and knocked on the doors that elected Republican candidates for decades. It’s Tuesday luncheon featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders. The Master Calendar said it was SOLD OUT and they wouldn’t let me in. I was able to get into their lounge at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday evening, where I was repeatedly asked if I was a member, and if not, would I join. “I’m press,” I said. “I can’t join anything partisan.” I then said: “What brings you here?” On hearing that, finding anyone willing to chat with me was like pulling teeth.
Moms for Liberty met in a concert hall that afternoon. I had pre-registered, and I got in. From high in a balcony seat I listened to several people talk about the evils of transgenderism. It’s webpage says WE BELIEVE Power Belongs to the People. Sound Familiar? With a focus is on parental rights, it wants to “STOP WOKE indoctrination.”
Tuesday I went to “The New Mavericks” reception co-hosted by the Black Republican Mayors Association and the Georgia Republican Party. They honored Sen. Tim Scott, four Congressmen and two Georgia delegates – all male. There was only one mayor on stage, from Aurora, IL. The chair of the Georgia Republican Party was the one white man on the stage. At that event, women served; they didn’t speak. The RNC reported that 55 delegates to the 2024 convention are Black, up from 18 in 2016.
I missed the Independent Women’s Forum toast to “Women Who Make Our Country Great” because I went to Convention Fest: The Official Delegate Experience, which was held in the streets outside the Fiserve Forum and Baird Hall as well as some space inside Baird. To get to that one you not only needed a credential of some sort, but a USSS pass (which I have).
Concerned Women for America parked its pink bus across from the Baird Center the week before the RNC. No one was home. When Convention Fest opened on Tuesday afternoon, they set up a pink tent, from which its leaders preached to whomever passed by. It calls itself “the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization” but its focus is evangelical Christian. The slogan on the side of its pink bus captures this emphasis: “She Prays, She Votes.” A prayer precedes each sermon.
Jo Freeman's Democratic Convention Diary: Bernie Sanders Supporters, More Sad Than Celebratory, More Angry Than Uplifted
But the Berniers I listened to in the downtown rallies and in FDR park were more sad than celebratory, more angry than uplifted. They wanted red meat, not Tofurky. This went beyond what I saw in 2008, when Hillary’s dedicated supporters were disappointed that she wasn’t heading the Democratic ticket, or even in the second spot. The latter were in mourning, not out for revenge. more »
Elaine Soloway's Rookie Widow Series: Cheapskate, Environmentalist, or Chicken; How Journaling Propels Me Forward; Que Sera, Sera
In this current period of my life, with my morning journaling as sacred as a religious rite, I also read a page taken from past years. I do this because I want to learn my patterns — worries that never came to pass, prophetic musings, and other buried gold. Because of my daily journaling and the The Rookie Caregiver blog I was writing at the time, I had been able to release most of the shadows, fear, and grief. more »
Culture Watch: Book Review of Did You Ever Have a Family
The precipitating event of the lives intertwined like threads in primitive needlework is the tragedy on their wedding eve of a fatal explosion that destroys the young couple, sons and a lover. The bereavements leave behind survivors who are forever changed. Even the landscape where the exploded house once stood is forever wiped out. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the individuals whose existence has been altered beyond their own and others’ comprehension. more »
Jo Freeman's Convention Diary: Where Was the Luncheon for Melania? Keep It Made in America and the Donald Trump Bobblehead Were in Cleveland
Jo Freeman writes: I went to that party after writing this story in a tent sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which has comfortable couches and free drinks. The AAM is an alliance of the National Association of Manufacturers and several unions, including the United Auto Workers, of which I am a member (via Local 1981 — the National Writers Union). Their slogan is KEEP IT MADE IN AMERICA. The Donald might agree with that. more »
