No Fun or Games in San Diego

The only Republicans I know who are not in San Diego this week are staying home because they feel the GOP national convention will probably be dull.

All of my other conservative friends have streamed south like lepers to Lourdes, looking for a miracle of sorts that will cure them of Clintonism.

When I explained to the stay-at-homes that the purpose of a political convention is not necessarily to have fun, they said it wasn’t fun they were looking for exactly but emotional excitement.

I know what they mean, but San Diego itself is not conducive to excitement. A colleague claims that when NASA is finished searching for life on Mars, it will turn its attention to a search for life near Mission Bay.

In addition to which, the very nature of Republicanism is propriety, not hilarity, and propriety does not lend itself to a howling good time, even when it is afforded an opportunity to howl on prime time television.

However, there still may be an opportunity to add interest if not excitement to the doings short of adopting a platform abolishing Congress.

I have a few modest suggestions.

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To begin with, the most exciting Republican convention I can recall was the 1964 San Francisco bash that nominated Barry Goldwater.

A series of incidents made the conclave a hoot and a half, but the one that remains fixed in my mind is NBC reporter John Chancellor being hauled out for blocking an aisle on the convention floor.

Usually the very epitome of patrician good manners, Chancellor was carried off like a butchered steer, shouting, “It’s tough to be dignified at a time like this. . . .”

The incident was a big hit on national television, but the Republican Party was not amused. It angered them so much, in fact, that over the years they have blasted us as effete, aisle-clogging, sensation-seeking, nattering nabobs of negativism. In the lexicon of Republicanism, liberalpress is one word.

But The Day They Carried Chancellor Out still lives in memory as a moment of excitement not unlike the afternoon Babe Ruth called his own home run. Many conservatives still remember exactly what they were doing when Chancellor was hauled into history.

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Now, however, a new area of excitement is required to kick the convention into high gear and thereby win its time slot on television.

The inclusion of controversial personalities would help. Suggesting that Howard Stern, not Jack Kemp, be Bob Dole’s running mate is probably asking too much, but how about shock jock Don Imus as a nominating speaker?

The I-man, you might recall, was such a hit at the Radio-Television Correspondents dinner last March that President Clinton almost choked on his custard pudding, and that’s not easy to do.

Imus managed to malign 54 people during his presentation, but what really caused a stir of outrage was his, well, “humorous” reference to the president’s alleged womanizing.

Bad taste? Sure. But it got him a morning spot on an L.A. radio show that usually plays music no more controversial than Don Ho singing “Tiny Bubbles.” Notoriety, however offensive, often pays.

In Dole’s case, sex-and-old-age jokes are always a big hit and I’m sure Imus has a hundred of them he could tell at the Republican convention. His jokes, and subsequent lynching, would surely add a note of excitement to the Grand Old Party’s quadrennial soiree.

I realize that might seem a little extreme, but to paraphrase Goldwater in ‘64, extremism in pursuit of votes is no vice. “In your heart,” his posters thundered, “you know he’s right!” We applauded his style but elected Lyndon Johnson instead.

I doubt that anything this week in San Diego will create the kind of excitement necessary to get the convention off the ground, but there is one slim possibility: the closing ceremonies.

I suggest that the Republicans place an emergency call to Don Mischer, who produced the mind-boggling doo-dah finale for the Olympics, and beg for his help. If he could do for the GOP what he did in Atlanta, the day is saved.

There probably isn’t room in the Convention Center for a skateboard ramp, marching bands and the entire Chinese ping-pong team, but tumblers and fluttery human butterflies soaring through the room ought to help liven things a bit. It may be the only excitement anyone’s going to get.

Al Martinez can be reached via the Internet at [email protected]