September 2012 - Page 2 of 2

People You Meet and Questions You Ask at Political Conventions

Part of the experience of a political convention is encountering all types of people in the hallways and on the city sidewalks. Some of the best talking heads the Democrats have are in town this week and on-message with daily talking points on why President Obama deserves a second term. But I think its the rank and file delegates who provide the more insightful conversation. After a long day of reporting at the Charlotte Convention Center, I stopped off at a restaurant a few blocks down the street to grab a bite to eat and wait on the rain to lighten up before moving on to my next event. I wasn’t looking for an interview when I took an empty seat next to a gentleman and his wife who looked like they were in town for a political event. And I was right. After a few minutes of small talk, they told me they were convention delegates from Iowa. Then the husband asked if I was a delegate. “No, I’m a journalist and I’m in town to cover the convention,” I replied. That’s when I told them I wrote for The Christian Post. Yep, you guessed it. We started talking [...]

By Paul Stanley|2012-09-03T22:40:13-05:00September 3rd, 2012|My Blog Post|Comments Off

Labor Day at the DNC; Wasserman-Schultz Addresses Faith Council

Most of the Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte have arrived and are wandering around downtown Charlotte in an effort to acclimate themselves to the events of the next three days. Although it’s Labor Day in at the DNC, you won’t see a big union presence because North Carolina is a right-to-work state and the AFL-CIO reminds the Democrats of that fact every chance they get. A handful of big labor bosses will be in town but they won’t be spending big labor bucks on the convention. The highlight of the day is the Carolina Fest being headlined by James Taylor. My only other major convention experience was attending the 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego. If you can’t remember that far back, Sen. Bob Dole and former Secretary Jack Kemp were the party’s nominees. And in case you are wondering, they didn’t win but it was fun nonetheless. I drove in and parked as close to downtown as I could this morning but still had to walk about 15 blocks to reach the convention center. I picked up my credentials (maybe I’ll write a separate post about that process) before finding the media center. All the big [...]

By Paul Stanley|2012-09-03T15:17:37-05:00September 3rd, 2012|My Blog Post|2 Comments

Heading to the DNC in Charlotte

As I write this post I’m sitting in the Nashville airport on my way to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Only as a child would I have thought I would find myself attending a gather such as this since my parents were involved in Democratic Party politics during my formative years. Many of my friends and their parents found themselves in the same situation, especially if they grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line. But I am not covering the event from a partisan perspective; instead, I will be covering it as a journalist. Besides my parent’s political involvement, my great uncle, Jess Lanier, was the mayor of Bessemer, Alabama and also served as the chairman of his state’s delegation at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Illinois. This is the same convention that saw multiple protests over the Vietnam War and where police roughed up a number of journalism including Dan Rather when they attempted to interview delegates who were being escorted out of the building. Hoping that doesn’t happen to me in Charlotte. My objective will be simple: I’ll be covering how religion and faith are presented at the convention and what themes the Democrats [...]

By Paul Stanley|2012-09-02T19:06:32-05:00September 2nd, 2012|My Blog Post|Comments Off