What Lies Beneath

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

–W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

I had a decision to make. I’d been in Tampa for all
of 15 minutes, and I was already late for something, anything, everything–a
white rabbit with OCD, searching for Mad Hatters.

Of course, I knew
the real Republican National Convention would occur far from the klieg
lights and sound bites of primetime. It’d be found in closed-door meetings,
invitation-only events and the visceral experience of witnessing the awkward,
painful birth of history in the making.

The week before
the RNC began, that manifested itself in the creation of the official GOP
platform. According to a Washington Post account, proposed initiatives
included returning to the gold standard, safeguarding against Sharia law,
loosening gun regulations, building a new border fence and excluding female
soldiers from combat duty.

My choices were
less reasonable. At that very moment, Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing an exclusive
gig downtown; Log Cabin Republicans were gathering at a bar called The Rusty
Pelican; and throngs of delegates, dignitaries and media were gaping at bright,
shiny things dangled by the Tampa Bay Host Committee at Tropicana Field.

Instead, I opted
to drive my Democrat-blue rental car with Rhode Island plates to the gritty
outskirts of eastern Tampa for a Tea Party gathering dubbed “Unity Rally 2012.”
As Hurricane Isaac veered left, I was about to turn hard right.

A lot has changed since Nov. 4, 2008. That election
night, millions cheered; doves sang; and unicorns galloped through the streets
of Chicago as Oprah and I sniveled like 6-year-olds.

Four years later,
we’re in the middle of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Beyond global recession and
worldwide political upheaval, the tenor of U.S. politics is wedged in the
grease trap of Sylvia Plath’s oven. The partisan divide has reached Grand
Canyon proportions while the national discourse has sunk deep into a fetid
swampland of Fox News, death panels, MSNBC, bailouts, Twitter, birthers,
Facebook and Occupy Wall Street.

“Too often in
today’s poisonous atmosphere, those of us who reach across the aisle to work
with colleagues of a different party end up vilified by both the far left and
the far right,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the moderate
Republican Main Street Partnership, told me in an email. “As one constituent
said to me, ‘Why can’t you all be Americans first?'”

It’s an election
year, for starters. Republicans cite rabid liberalism, socialist agendas and
Obama’s utter lack of leadership as their excuse for being obstructionists.
Democrats clamor about radical conservatism, cynical right-wing sabotage and
the hot mess Obama inherited for their apparent impotence. It’s the worst game
of “But they did it first!”
ever.

“For both sides,
it isn’t about what’s best for the country anymore; it’s about what’s best for
the party every time,” said Christine Todd Whitman, the former New Jersey
governor and Environmental Protection Agency administrator under George W.
Bush. “That’s extremely disheartening for people who truly care about public
service. Our founding fathers worried about a time when political party would
supersede policy, and I think we’re there.”

Frankly, I’ve
become exhausted with being a speck of mortar in one brick wall butting its
head against another. I’ve got bigger catfish to noodle. After the 2008
election, I turned 30, and then it quickly turned on me. I became a father, got
a “real” job and moved to the suburbs. In short, I’m as Republican as I’ll ever
be.

Reckless abandon
these days means buying a WeedWacker at Home Depot that’s way outside my price
range. Don’t laugh. That bad boy is the Jason Bourne of lawn maintenance:
Methodical and ruthless with a thirst that can only be slaked with bloodlust
and two-cycle oil.

Not unlike Mitt
Romney.

I kid. Although
neither Bourne nor Romney has much use for institutional memory: What? I’m a
highly trained covert assassin?What? I was a pro-choice governor who
acquiesced to civil unions and passed universal health care? The mind
doesn’t boggle. It’s too busy playing Jenga with Muhammad Ali and Michael J.
Fox.

Still, I don’t
really blame Romney or the team of Jim Henson Company puppeteers in charge of
animating his facial expressions during stump speeches. He’s a
well-intentioned, self-aware Manchurian Candidate doing what it takes to
fulfill a family legacy and get to Pennsylvania Avenue, even if it means
pouring out a little pander-flavored Meow Mix for feral birthers with his
“Nobody’s ever asked to see my birth certificate” quip just before the RNC.

Candidates will be
candidates. My focus in Tampa was of a broader scope to see if there is any
room for moderation left, or if we are, in fact, in the middle of an
ideological civil war. Beg your pardon. An “Ideological War of Northern
Aggression.” This is the South, after all.

Whether you view the Tea Party as a beacon of light
or the heart of darkness, there’s no denying that the passionate consortium of
pissed-off conservatives represents both the fervent desire for a better future
and the philosophical abyss that divides the country’s partisans.

Virtually every
Republican I spoke to during the RNC believes that the Tea Party is unfairly
maligned, and its key issues (fiscal conservatism, small government, taxes) are
frequently misrepresented. Liberals see the Tea Party as the end result of
conservatives going off their meds en masse. Republicans see a grassroots
return to conservative principles.

There was
supporting evidence for both arguments at the Unity Rally. Dustin Stockton,
chief strategist for TheTeaParty.net, told several hundred attendees–some
waving “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, others dressed in colonial garb: “What we’re
proposing isn’t radical; it isn’t extreme.” He then implied that the U.S.
Postal Service should be abolished.

Stockton was
preceded by conservative talk-show host Neil Boortz calling Democrats “the
looters, the moochers, the parasites” and Tea Party Nation founder Judson
Phillips pulling a Chuck Heston in offering his freedom and liberty to Obama
and company “when you pry it from my COLD! DEAD! HANDS!”

What the movement
has indisputably done is energize Republicans and accelerate the precocious
rise of hard-line candidates like Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Sen. Marco Rubio and
Sen. Rand Paul.

“I’m very excited
about the new generation of conservative leaders,” said Al Cardenas, chairman
of the American Conservative Union, which runs the influential Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC). “We have some outstanding, talented people
who are representing the future of the party and of the conservative movement.”

Speaking to the
Unity Rally about the official party positioning, Bachmann declared that “the
Tea Party is all over that platform.” It was a sentiment echoed by the event’s
keynote speaker, former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, who cited
vigilance and the unification of conservative voices as the key to defeating
Obama.

“Stay informed,”
Cain implored the crowd solemnly, “because stupid people are ruining America.”

For all the rewards–and risks–that the Tea Party
provides to Republicans, arguably no individual holds more power in keeping the
conservative alliance intact than former GOP presidential candidate and
Libertarian idol Rep. Ron Paul.

You’d be
hard-pressed to find a legislator with a more passionate, quixotic and flat-out
perplexing political fan base. We’re talking about a guy whose platform of
limited government and individual liberty had his supporters flocking to a
three-day P.A.U.L. Festival in Tampa leading up to the RNC. I repeat: A three-day
festival. For a member of Congress.

The night before
the convention, Paul loyalists gathered at a waterfront bar called Whiskey
Joe’s for a late-night event hilariously titled “Ron Paul’s Liberty Rocks Beach
Party” featuring Blues Traveler frontman John Popper and blues guitarist Jimmie
Vaughan.

In a bizarre
scene, dudes sporting goatees and cargo shorts threw back Coronas on the beach
alongside guys in full suits and discussed the merits of the Keystone Pipeline,
how the tax system is institutional thievery, and why the Federal Reserve
should be investigated. All while being pelted with swirling wind and rain
brought on by Tropical Storm Isaac.

“We’re all very
independent-minded, and that’s one of the great things about the liberty
movement,” said Bryn Dennehy, a 24-year-old college student who traveled from
Eugene, Ore., to support Paul. “On the flip side, that means everybody kind of
wants to do their own thing, so it can be kind of hard to get everybody
organized and all in one place.”

Nevertheless, Paul
supporters had the second-most-visible presence on the streets of Tampa beside
the thousands of khaki-clad law enforcement deployed during the convention. The
city had braced for 5,000 protestors. Instead, they got a whole lot of weak
sauce.

The convention
perimeter was fortified for an invasion. Instead, the only “activists” to show
were Ron Paul supporters, bored street kids, a few curbside preachers, two
anti-gay groups, some Scientologists and a couple of scattered groups
advocating assorted causes.

The only
protesters to show any balls, so to speak, were Code Pink activists wearing
giant vagina costumes. Members of the women-led social-justice organization
also managed to infiltrate the Tampa Bay Times Forum disguised as prim
partisans. When they stood up and began shouting, “People over profits!” in an
attempt to disrupt Romney’s acceptance speech, they were quickly subdued and
led away amid arena-wide chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”

The lack of dissent expressed at the RNC by
virtually anyone not affiliated with Ron Paul wasn’t exactly a ringing
endorsement for Romney. It quickly became clear–in the way people chose their
words like it was their last meal–that few were completely enamored with the
nominee.

“It’s hard to find
the perfect candidate,” said Jerry T. Miller, a Kentucky delegate and
Louisville Metro Council member. “If I could, I’d probably take a quarter of
Romney, a quarter of Ron Paul, a quarter of Rick Santorum and maybe a quarter
of Newt Gingrich.”

That sound you
hear is liberals collectively shuddering. Then again, in an era of super-PACs
gone wild after being unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, anything is possible in an election
where both campaigns will collectively spend more than $2 billion. The role of
money became uncomfortably obvious at an event with an open bar when I was randomly
introduced to a third-party congressional candidate from a Midwest swing state.

“I’m a
journalist,” I blurted, recognizing that the candidate was about two drinks
past three sheets to the wind.

“Here’s what I
need from you,” she slurred, undeterred. “I need you to get together with your
friends and raise $250 to $500 for me because I need at least $100,000 to even
run a shoestring campaign.”

If I needed that
kind of scratch, I’d be liver-deep in free drinks, too. Luckily for the
fledgling politicians in attendance, there was plenty to go around. National
conventions represent a golden opportunity for companies, lobbyists, super-PACs
and partisan organizations to ply people of influence with everything from
gratis Grey Goose to a complimentary Kid Rock concert.

Needing a break
from the RNC chaos, I slipped away one afternoon for something a bit more
practical and grounded: a visit to the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.
I made it as far as the gift shop before I was informed that the museum was
closing early for a “private event.”

“We never shut
down early,” the lady at the ticket counter told me in a hushed tone. “We close
on Thanksgiving and Christmas–that’s it.”

Judging by the
large phalanx of Men in Black talking into their sleeves, I figured it was
somebody big, somebody important. Romney? Ryan? Turns out it was a reception
celebrating Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, sponsored by Burlington Northern Santa
Fe. Talk about surrealism.

Money is famously
a nonissue for the Republican presidential candidate. But while unbridled
enthusiasm for Romney may be lacking, complete vitriol for Obama–supplemented
by the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as the vice presidential nominee and the
adoption of a conservative-friendly party platform–is clearly fueling the
campaign.

“There has always
been a passionate sense of need and urgency to defeat this president,” Cardenas
said. “But you also want to be excited about the ticket. I think with the
selection of Paul Ryan, the adoption of the platform and that sense of urgency,
we’re getting a confluence of factors that are really energizing people.”

Make no mistake: Partisans
thrive on red meat. Talk meaningfully about bipartisan compromise, and you’ll
receive irritated silence. Mention Sept. 11, freedom, the American Dream and
Barack Hussein Obama in the same sentence, and your likeness will be
carved into Mount Rushmore by sundown. George W. Bush may be gone, but you’re
still either with us, or against us.

“This isn’t the
time for middle-of-the-road politicians,” Cardenas said. “The only way Congress
is going to move forward is if either party has the White House and a majority
in both houses of Congress. Our focus is on a Republican majority.”

That much was
apparent at a screening of the documentary Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With
Destiny, part of an RNC film series operated by a company called Citizens
United Productions offering such titles as Occupy: Unmasked (introduced
by Bachmann) and The Hope and the Change (a film about Democrats and
independents who’ve turned on Obama).

During the screening of Reagan, the audience cheered when the
Gipper intoned, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and was practically giddy
when he said, “There is no substitute for victory.” The room was silent when
the documentary–narrated by Newt Gingrich and his unblinking wife, Callista–mentioned
Reagan’s record of achieving across-the-aisle accords.

After the screening, I asked Gingrich–who was on hand to introduce the
film and shuck merch–what the bipartisan prospects were for a Romney
administration. He echoed the aspirations of a clean Republican sweep in
November.

“Look, if we win control of the Senate, he’ll be able to put together a
majority coalition, and there will be a handful of Democrats who will vote with
him,” Gingrich said. “If that doesn’t happen, it’s much harder. If Harry Reid
is still the majority leader, it is going to be very hard to get things done
that we want to get done.”

But in order to energize enough voters to unseat Obama, the Republicans
have been forced into an awkward position of maintaining a hard-line stance
that appeals to the base while trying to expand the “big tent” far enough to
soften its image and mobilize more moderate Republicans and independents.

That approach seemed to manifest itself in an RNC panel discussion
promisingly titled: “Can We Have a Bipartisan Debate About Health Care Reform?”
After some legitimately thoughtful discussion among an all-Republican panel, Georgia
Rep. Phil Gingrey concluded, “I think we can do it, and we can do it in a
bipartisan fashion.”

As satisfied attendees filtered out of the room, they passed a table
stacked with literature that included a promotional card for the book Why
Obamacare Is Wrong for America (authored by the panel moderator), a
brochure titled “The 10 Worst Things About Obamacare” and a Forbes article with the headline “The real tragedy of Obamacare has yet to be felt by
the poor.”

One thing that was becoming readily apparent as I forged my way through
convention week was a collective–if almost universally unrecognized–penchant
for cognitive dissonance.

“The Republican Party is not anti-immigration,” Alejandro Capote, a
20-year-old Florida State University student (and Florida delegate) told me.
“We support immigration. We just support legal immigration.”

The fact that Capote had just finished telling me the harrowing story of
how his father hand-built a raft in a failed effort to flee his native Cuba and
immigrate–illegally–to the United States didn’t seem to register.

I received a similar–though more nuanced–response from Clarke Cooper,
national executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, an organization of gay
conservatives, when I asked him about the staunch position supporting the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) written into the party’s official convention
platform.

“While the platform language is abysmal,” Cooper began, measuring his
words, “I was heartened to see the debate and the dialogue that occurred. I
think it reflected the push-pull within our party on these issues. The trend is
in our favor.”

Cooper rightfully pointed out the fact that Log Cabin has earned an
increasingly visible and substantive position within the Republican Party. His
view is that the doggedly conservative stance on DOMA held by the GOP is a
“last gasp.”

Then again, the group is still understandably cautious. I was allowed to
interview delegates attending a Log Cabin event at a posh waterfront restaurant,
but was forbidden from taking any pictures. One guest understood the
sensitivities better than most.

“Gay Republicans have much more of a voice today than they’ve ever had,”
said former Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe, one of the first Republican members of
Congress to acknowledge his sexual orientation. “Sure, I’m dismayed when
moderates don’t get their voice heard–and I guess you’d have to consider gay
Republicans on the moderate side of things–but it’s a gradual progression that
I think we’re going to see continue.”

It’s a measured approach that’s been adopted by what Herman Cain
flamboyantly calls the “ABCs” or American Black Conservatives. And, yes, I can
confirm that they do exist, despite the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that was bandied about during convention week surmising that Romney
figured to gain exactly 0 percent of the African-American vote.

Dr. Carol Swain, a former Democrat, was a featured panelist at an RNC
forum titled “Black People and the Republican Party–A Historic Perspective.”
Her fellow panelists included Tim Johnson (founder of the Frederick Douglass
Foundation) and Rev. C.L. Bryant, an ardent Tea Party supporter and star of a
documentary called Runaway Slave that aired in Tampa in the same theater
showing the conservative breakout film 2016: Obama’s America to packed
houses.

“On Election Night 2008, I was doing analysis for BBC Radio, and I told
186 million people that I thought Obama supporters would have buyer’s remorse,
and everybody was shocked,” said Swain, a professor at Vanderbilt University.
“I think the black community is worse off because of his election. I wish it
had been a different black person who was elected the first black president; I
wish it was somebody that I knew loved my country.”

In many ways, the eerie calm that follows a storm
is worse than being trapped in the clenched teeth of its wrath. All that’s left
is to survey the damage.

Room 423 at the
Wyndham Tampa Westshore had been hit hard. Debris was strewn across the desk,
the side table, the top of the coffeemaker and TV stand, and was slowly
creeping across the floor toward the bathroom.

There were piles
of crumpled parking permits and press badges. A mountain of creased business
cards, road maps and newspapers with headlines like “Isaac intrudes,” “On the
attack” and “Mitt’s promise.” Two tape recorders containing hours of rants and
laments, pleas and pontification. Two notebooks filled with delirious scrawls.
A pile of clothes best suited for an incinerator.

The speeches had
been given, messages delivered, facts massaged. The confetti and balloons had
fallen. Now, another crossroads.

“So here we
stand,” Romney had said. “Americans have a choice. A decision.”

This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2012.