Bash Compactor: Grand Old Party Indeed
Blazers and ties abounded for the men, while women genteelly fingered single strands of pearls around their neck Thursday night, when the Metropolitan Republican Club and the New York Young Republican Club came together on the Upper East Side to watch John McCain's Republican National Convention speech.
When my boyfriendyes, I took my boyfriend to a Republican partyand I arrived, we were surprised to discover that most of the crowd was from The Metropolitan Republican Club, which is a nice way of saying that the crowd skewed to the older side. And the cranky side. Just like Senator McCain!
As we filled our plates and guzzled glasses of wine, the people crowded around the TV at the end of the room yelled repeatedly for quiet as Bill O'Reilly quizzed Barack Obama. It was to be the first of many instances when people who wanted to watch TV at a party became incensed that other people were talking and laughing.
Although my boyfriend and I had been pleased about dressing up to fit in, it was a mere fifteen minutes before the sole lesbian in the room approached.
A successful small-business owner, Zoa was quick to make the same comments about VP-nominee Sarah Palin that I would hear repeated all night. "Shes so real! She's a breath of fresh air. Do I agree with all of her policies? No. But no one's perfect."
Proving the point, Log Cabin Republican John G. Chromczak, who is currently running for state senate, said almost the same things about the Alaskan hockey mom.
"But," I asked, "don't you feel threatened by her born-again background?"
"No. That's her moral compass." He also referred to Palin as a breath of fresh air, presumably because she's inexperienced on a national level.
But before long, quiet was once again screeched for as the video describing John McCain's stint in Vietnam came on (several people left Cindy McCain's speech for a quick cigarette), and everyone began cheering wildly. When McCain declared that they would win the election, the room shook with "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" A few moments later, one man idly started chanting it again, all the while absentmindedly fingering his BlackBerry.