No new conventions

I AM NOT a conventional person. Or so I keep telling myself. How I hate the plastic hotels, the mindless chanting of the rent-a-zombie crowds, the bumptious behavior of enmassed small-town delegates off on a toot, and the hasty, half-digested meals (and platform planks) that characterize Republican Conventions. Read my lips: No new conventions.

Every four years for the past quarter-century, I have solemnly sworn to skip the next Republican Convention; five out of seven times, I've broken my oath. Which was why I found myself up at the crack of dawn the morning of August 14, catching a 6:55 A.M. flight from Washington to Houston.

A car, with courteous local driver, was waiting at the airport, and Houston's "howdy" hospitality began to make inroads on my misanthropy. But the first, forlorn view of the Astrodome, looking like an abandoned Soviet nuclear reactor and surrounded by vast tracts of treeless, empty concrete parking lot, refocused my critical faculties. That and the accommodations; the Days Inn had been chosen for the speechwriting and editing task force because it is within quick, if sweaty, walking distance of the convention complex. But there its virtues ended. With its midget showers and giant insect life, we were soon referring to it as the "Disease Inn." In fairness, it has reportedly been scheduled for demolition, and, again, the Houstonian employees were all models of courtesy and helpfulness.

After a day spent editing and riding herd on Convention speakers, 1 adjourned to the nearest watering hole, the well-run Cattleman's Club in the neighboring Sheraton. The name of the bar inspired me to order a bullshot, which, taken with a miniature bottle of Tabasco sauce, turned out to be the perfect resalination drink after the steamy hike from our bunker in the Astrodome.

Again, my hostility wavered; the place was a virtual class reunion. Before I could pull up a barstool, I bumped into three British correspondents from the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs and the Daily Mail, "Scott," a zany TV correspondent from Washington now resident in Houston (covering the scandal beat, he later trailed several stuffy but sozzled senior GOP types to Houston's premier strip joint), and George Embrey, the veteran, certifiably non-liberal correspondent for the Columbus Dispatch.

Later that evening my misanthropy suffered its final setback when we pulled a gastronomic coup, discovering the delightful, if unimaginatively named, "Rotisserie Beef and Bird" at 2200 Wilcrest. Texans will shoot anything; often enough, they hit highly edible game, so the rotisserie's larder is always amply stocked. Presided over by an amiable German master chef and boasting a good cellar as well as tempting menu, it is both a delight and a bargain.

The skids having been greased, I gave up and enjoyed the rest of my week in Houston. Highlights included the satisfaction of having the mike cut off on a veteran congressional gasbag we will call "Greg von der Yack." After years of ignoring time limits, he made his final exit with jaws flapping and arms flailing, his mike dead, and his shouts drowned out by the band.

Seeing my old boss, Renald Reagan, deliver the speech of a lifetime was one of the week's greatest satisfactions. Additional relish was provided by an enraged NBC correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, turning to a liberal colleague as wave upon wave of applause inundated the Gipper, and snarling, "He got away with it again!"

The poor beggars still can't understand something as basic and natural as Ronald Reagan's appeal to the optimism, enterprise, and basic decency of the average American. But, then, what would they know about such things?

THE REST of the official proceedings went about as well as could be expected, producing the much-needed "bounce." Pat Buchanan did his Savonarola number, scaring some but inspiring many others. Compassion weighed in with a moving, dignified speech by a real victim of AIDS, Mary Fisher, and some warm, sensible talk from America's Mother of all Mothers, Barbara Bush. Danny Boy exhibited his new-found rhetorical testosterone, and Mr. Bush, as usually happens in a pinch, showed that his fires had not been banked. Slick Willy has a fight on his hands. But my favorite memories are the unofficial vignettes: NR's sparkling cocktail party on Tuesday night, a salon amongst saloons that brought together neo-cons, paleo-cons, VIPs, wits, wastrels, and some first-rate beauties; the appalling moment when a prominent European columnist, whose aesthetic judgment I had hitherto trusted, confided that Marilyn Quayle "turned him on"; the shambling old bagperson I spotted in the corridor one afternoon who looked like a broken-down parody of Norman Mailer (who, on closer inspection, he proved to be); the barbecue, the Lone Star Beer, the unhassled civility of ordinary Houstonians, and the reconfirmation of an old suspicion that, while all mobs are loathsome, Republican ' mobs are less smelly, self-righteous, and undemocratic than Democratic mobs... all leading to the dread suspicion that, four years from now, I'll break my "no new conventions" pledge for the sixth time in 28 years.