Opinions to go Online

I have to believe that in the post-9/11 epoch, there is really no such thing as a routine presidential visit — although there are certainly routines to follow. And most such visits, fortunately, are without notable incident.

But these are some dicey days. Presidential politics haven’t been this polarized since Vietnam brought down a president. An unnecessary war, a botched occupation and a Strangeloveian foreign policy pretty much accounts for it.

Plus, Michael Moore is on the loose and Whoopi Goldberg is on the case. In fact, the political dialogue is so poisoned that best-selling author Nicholson Baker easily rationalizes a plot line in his latest novel, “Checkpoint,” which references the possible assassination of President George W. Bush.

But much more to the point is the chilling prospect — and ongoing reminders — that suicidal murderers are a real — if not omnipresent — danger. The rules are not just different over THERE anymore. That’s why we now live with a permanent yellow alert.

I was musing on all this a week and a half ago as I was noting — and noticing — the democracy-in-action scene around the Marriott Waterside Hotel where President Bush would later speak on human trafficking. Some 30 years ago — in a political rite of passage — I had witnessed my first presidential visit when Gerald Ford came to Williams Park in downtown St. Petersburg.

I saw my first sharpshooter. I saw a lot of police, a lot of barricades, a lot of curious well-wishers and a lot of obvious Secret Service types, including a guy sitting in a low-hanging bough of a tree talking to someone electronically. Crowd-control went well, and the post-Watergate assemblage — with allowances for a few folks who never got over the Nixon pardon — was friendly. But this was the President of the United States, and you never know where the next Squeaky Fromm might be lurking.

The signs at the recent presidential drive-by were manifest around the hotel and convention center. Police on boats. In helicopters. In squad cars. On horses. On rooftops. On foot. They seemed to outnumber the 150 or so protestors — mostly gathered at the intersection of Franklin Street and Channelside Drive. They complemented the expressionless folks with earpieces, corporate haircuts and seemingly suffocating dark suits. Would that they were only scouring the landscape for Squeaky wannabes.

What you see is what you get from the behind-the-scenes planning that is the province of the Tampa Police Department’s Special Operations Bureau. They get a penciled-in itinerary from the president’s advance team. From there, they know the drill, says TPD spokesman Joe Durkin. It’s a matter of coordinating location, route and manpower and working in concert with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Highway Patrol and the Secret Service.

“It’s the unscheduled visits that are much more difficult,” Durkin explains. “This is more like a Super Bowl. You take the last schematic and then update it. We adapt accordingly.”

There is even a benefit, if you will, of heightened homeland security, says Durkin. “We now have a tremendous communications network among all law enforcement agencies.”

But back to the Bush visit.

The requisite protestors and supporters were not placard-challenged. The anti-war signage included “‘W’ Is What Went Wrong,” “What Would Jesus Bomb?” and “What Price Glory Now, Lt. Bush?” As a backdrop they had the dueling-taunt banners Joe Redner hung from his vacant (now razed) building at Florida Avenue and Channelside Drive: “Is Bush the Anti-Christ?” and “Bush: ‘God Told Me To Invade Iraq.'”

Directly across from the convention center was a large, inflated rodent with a cigar that was the center of trade union and feminist messages such as “Don’t Privatize Medicare” and “Stop The Bush-Whacking of a Woman’s Rights.” Etc.

Another day at the cacophonous security office, I surmised. And yet.

These are such high-anxiety, high-surveillance, high-stakes times. Can’t be too vigilant. Can’t take anything for granted. Especially those of us for whom observational skills are part of a journalist’s tool kit.

Having said that — I couldn’t help but notice what appeared to be a maintenance worker in a mismatched uniform and sunglasses. He was pushing a cart of something to somewhere.

And then there were all those folks involved in a gymnastic tumbling competition who were exiting, almost on cue, from the convention center. Mostly animated kids, but also a mix of squinting, serious-looking adults — family and officials no doubt.

Then the ubiquitous, equipment-lugging media types. They looked especially burdened down with cameras and lenses and related stuff.

And that distracting guy with an emigration agenda and a non-Romance language accent. He seemed to be making the rounds of all possible pundits.

And some bandana-masked folks idling on the Harbour Island bridge behind the Marriott.

Say what?

Call me paranoid. Or a serial profiler. I’ll certainly accept prudent. Perhaps 100 feet behind the Marriott were a half dozen or so masked people milling about. Reconnoitering came to mind. Some were still working on signs. Not far, near the apex of the bridge was a TPD officer on horseback.

“So, what’s with the bandanas?” I asked of one masked man. He stopped. He lowered his mask to reveal a 20-something, All-American sort of visage. He was succinct but not impolite. “We’re fighting pollution and identity,” he revealed. He didn’t linger for obvious follow-ups and then sidled off with his identity-concealing colleagues.

He was not a mosque man, and this was hardly a jihad moment, but it took me — if no one else — aback. What was the case for permitting people in masks near a presidential motorcade route?

“People are passionate about their politics, and they have the freedom to protest,” reasons TPD spokesman Durkin. “We watch for all kinds of potential threats.

“It’s not what they are or are not wearing,” he emphasized. “Whether it’s a three-piece suit or a bandana. It’s how they act.”

John Ashcroft, I sense, might not have been that understanding.

The stories are only beginning. With the Democratic National Convention in Boston next week, we are being reminded that the political conventions are the dinosaurs of politics.

They haven’t determined a president for two generations and aren’t even forums for revealing a vice president any more. These tightly-scripted exercises in stagecraft — amid a pep-rally ambience — have been deemed worthy of reduced coverage by the networks. Ironically, however, the nets still manage to over-analyze everything and over-cover inane, soft-news features.

But just because the nominees have been pre-selected, platform planks pre-set and goofy hats prepared, doesn’t mean these quadrennial gatherings are nothing more than atavistic coronations exuding pomp and partisanship. Just because there’s a surfeit of in-house cheerleading, incessant backslapping, non-stop networking and a lot of politico-celebrity gawking, doesn’t mean there isn’t value.

It is this. Political conventions serve the same function as any other convention, whether it’s pharmaceuticals or auto supplies. It’s the perfect forum to energize the troops to go forth and, well, sell. In this case, a ticket, a message and a party.

University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus called such schmooze fests a “reward” for the county organizations and all those who “labor in the trenches.” It’s a way to gather party faithful, she says, and send them home psychologically stoked.

“It’s really about those who are the backbone of the party,” explained MacManus. “These are the people who can make or break a campaign between now and November. This is where state networks get together and discuss the issues and strategies. This is not unimportant.”

I still hearken back to a delegate I spoke to during the 2000 GOP convention in Philadelphia. His name was Joseph Kasper; he was from New York City; and he was sporting a faux campaign button adorned with the dual visages of Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton. He spoke to the “newsworthiness” of the event.

“There’s plenty of drama and news during the primaries and again in November,” he opined. “Here I don’t need drama and news. Here I need to feel pumped as I head back to my district, which is four-to-one Democratic, and motivate our people to work their butts off. I come out of here fortified by this experience.”

And while the networks reduce their coverage to prime time, there remains the reality that there’s still plenty of other media attention — ranging from myriad daily newspapers and on-line pundits to cable, PBS and C-SPAN. Enough arguably that a politically somnolent electorate can still be awakened.

“One of the biggest problems we have in this country is voter apathy,” points out Tampa developer Al Austin, the consummate Republican Party insider and delegate to the 2000 GOP convention. “An event like this is an opportunity to get people focused on the fact that there’s a presidential election coming up. It’s a way for voters to get aware and interested — and introduced to candidates.”

Call it the “Richard Pryor approach” to political campaign ads. The voice-over might say “

John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards as a running mate makes eminently good sense in most presidential election years. But this isn’t one of them.

Granted, most presidential aspirants wouldn’t look askance at the opportunity to add quick-study smarts, good looks, charisma, energy, humble beginnings, geographic diversity, campaigning savvy, debating expertise and populist schtick without patrician baggage to the ticket. In 2004, that’s a lot of stuff that John Kerry isn’t. Edwards brings all of that to the table.

However, he also lugs along all of the inherent inexperience, especially in the international arena, you expect with a freshman senator — one who ironically couldn’t win re-election from the North Carolina voters. As for those who point to George W. Bush’s thin foreign policy resume before his election: well, see what can happen.

And as for those who note that voters typically don’t care who’s on the second spot, well, that’s true. However, we really don’t have that luxury in a time of war. We’d better care who’s a heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief. America is not a plaintiff in a personal injury suit.

It mattered that FDR had Harry Truman and not Henry Wallace. It mattered, alas, that John Kennedy had Lyndon Johnson. It could have mattered big time that George H.W. Bush had Dan Quayle.

More serious security hits — at ports, malls, stadiums or refineries — will send the economy south. “Outsourcing” and “tax breaks for the rich” will be rendered moot — so much empty, class-warfare, election rhetoric. When the underpinnings of life as we know it are under assault, the homeland mantra will become a neo-Carvilleian “It’s the right to live our lives, stupid.”

America, as the world’s lone hegemon, is at a crossroads. Are we on course for “global domination or global leadership?” as Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski asks in his latest book, “The Choice.”

How do we proactively protect ourselves without alienating traditional allies and true friends? We’d better be able to do both.

How do we go after terrorists — as well as the roots of terrorism? Let’s be candid, “they” don’t “hate” us — at least enough to kill us — because we love “freedom.” They hate us because of our foreign policy. It’s about a less-than-even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s about propping up corrupt oil sheikdoms. It’s about American troops proximate to Mecca. That’s what is really behind all the Islamo-babble about infidels.

These are the overriding issues — not women’s rights, cultural sludge, the right to cast an uninformed ballot or econo-techno jealousy — that really matter. This is no time for a foreign- policy lightweight with negligible security gravitas to balance a ticket — as if this were business as usual. As if all that mattered were that Edwards can complement Kerry by compensating for his charisma bypass and offsetting his Ted Kennedy-clone voting record.

Kerry needed to send a signal of reassurance — beyond tepid triangulation on Iraq — to the American people that nothing — including “Two Americas” populism — was more important than the security of this country and its global relationships. A Wes Clark, a Bob Graham, a Joe Biden, a Dick Gephardt could have addressed that. Not someone — charming, presi-dentured looks notwithstanding — who’s a half dozen years removed from suing doctors and insurance companies.

It also would have been the right message to send our allies and, even more importantly, our enemies.

But here’s the good news. Edwards, whose youthful looks belie his 51 years, now has a leg up as the Democratic Party’s post-Kerry future. Hardly comforting to Hillary Clinton and her thinly-veiled presidential ambitions.

It’s been announced that President Bush’s itinerary won’t include an appearance at “Ground Zero” next month when the Republicans convene in New York. This can’t be what Karl Rove envisioned when he pushed for New York, a solid Democratic electoral state, to host the GOP convention.

“Ground Zero” was the site of President Bush’s finest moment, when in the traumatic aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 atrocities — amid firefighters and rescue workers, atop a pile of rubble with megaphone in hand — he rallied America in its darkest domestic hour.

But “Ground Zero” has expanded its symbolism. The “war on terrorism” is now shorthand for the mismanaged occupation of Iraq, which doesn’t conjure up much of anything positive to non neo-cons. A return to “Ground Zero” would now be an ironic reminder of “Mission Diverted”: How America converted the 9/11 moral high ground into a global sinkhole of resentment.