Gustove Hijacks the GOP

It is 1:30 a.m. and I am just ending my first day of the convention. I woke up at 6 am and caught my flight on Frontier to Minnesota (with a layover in Denver). My wife, Elizabeth, and 11 year old son, London, are traveling with me. (We left our other three kids home.) There were four other Utah delegates on my flight; I thought there would be more. We arrived at the Sofitel Hotel in Bloomington about 2:00 p.m. local time. Another delegate I know was on a non-stop flight here on Delta. Gov. Huntsman and Mary Kaye were on his flight. And guess what? They both sat in coach. True story.

The Utah delegation was assigned to the Sofitel Hotel, which has a four star rating. We are relatively close to the Mall of America. We are sharing the hotel with about 1/3 of the delegation from California. Both Dick Cheney and Arnold Schwarzenegger were scheduled to stay here, but both have cancelled their trips to the convention. (Cheney due to the hurricane; Arnold due to a $17 billion budget crisis.)

Once I arrived, I learned that Hurricane Gustov would likely redefine the whole week. Although there has been some discussion of cancelling the convention altogether, it will go on. Besides me, there are about 49,999 other people who have traveled to be here. In addition, it is important that we formally nominate McCain to be the Republican candidate so that he can qualify for the $84 million in federal matching funds.

We were supposed to be in session for eight hours on Monday. Yes, eight hours. We were all disappointed (NOT!) to learn that the sessions have been scaled back to two and a half hours.

This week, we will be focusing on service and also on raising money for the victims of Gustov. The Utah delegation was already scheduled on Tuesday to work with the Jeremiah Project, which provides housing and education for single mothers. Due to the schedule change for Monday, we scrambled and put together another service project for Monday evening in the basement of the hotel. We will be assembling hygiene kits.

A few of us had lunch at Dairy Queen since it is close to the hotel. I ordered a salad and onion rings. They were greasy but good. I especially enjoyed the bite of London's hotdog!

Around 5:30 we boarded buses and drove 20 minutes to the convention center in Minneapolis. We were greeted and treated like royalty. There were hundreds of local volunteers smiling at us, shaking our hands, and telling us how grateful they were to see us. And I believed them. It was wonderful. Four years ago, when Elizabeth and I took our oldest son with us to the convention in New York, we were greeted at the welcoming event by a hostile crowd that was yelling obscenities (which began with the letter "F") and threatening us.

We were ushered into a hall with thousands of people. The lines for the free food were long, but worth the wait. The event was amazing, and could best be described as a Smithsonian-type experience of the Presidency. Many of the displays were from presidential libraries, etc. My favorites were the replicas of the White House, Oval Office, and Air Force One. It was also neat to see flags from prior centuries. My wife enjoyed the dresses worn by former first ladies.

We bought some fun merchandise, including hats, ties and pins. It was a remarkable event put on by the host city.

My favorite part of the whole day was hanging out in the hotel lobby and speaking with friends, other delegates, and reporters. Doug Wright has lost a ton of weight since the last time I saw him. (Wish I could say the same.)

One highlight was meeting former Gov. Pete Wilson of California. I got my picture taken with him. Back in the day, he was considered a contender for the presidency.

I have got to get to sleep so I can get up in time to see Mitt Romney, who is joining us at our hotel for breakfast.