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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.
OMCA Exhibits: Inspiration Points, Peter Stackpole's Bridging the Bay and Vintage Car Last Over the Old Bridge
Oakland Museum of California opened the vaults to showcase the very best in California landscape art from the museum’s holdings, including works by Ansel Adams, Thomas Hill, David Hockney, William Keith, Arthur Mathews, Richard Misrach, Thomas Moran, and more. Peter Stackpole: Bridging the Bay
features stunning black-and-white photographs chronicling the original San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge construction in the 1930s by a famed American photographer. more »
A Museum on the Move: The Art of Oya and Fiber Artist Wearables at theTextile Museum Shop
The Textile Museum itself is in transit; it will be joining with the George Washington University to become a cornerstone of a new museum scheduled to open in fall 2014 on GW’s main campus in Foggy Bottom, DC. The shop, however, remains open during the move and scarves and shawls are a dominant shop feature, with Randall Darwall and other artists' examples, always a effective way to update a 'little black dress' or casual outfit. more »
Disaster Declaration Denials Exasperate Governors
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is supposed to follow specific guidelines when it advises a US President on whether to approve federal disaster aid for a state or individuals. But experts in the field say the disaster standards are unclear — and often ignored. The result is that disaster decisions can seem arbitrary or politically motivated. FEMA’s public explanations typically do not shed much light on its rulings, leaving governors to wonder why they missed out on federal help. more »
Senior Women Web Interviews Muriel Seibert
Mary McHugh interviewed the late Ms. Seibert in 2001: She is certainly one of the most powerful women in finance in this country as the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first to head one of its member firms, Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc., but she is also nicknamed Mickie, and is the most unpretentious and generous of women in any field. more »