Republican Convention: mingling with the movers and shakers

Yesterday was an eventful and exciting day.  We had Mike Huckabee and John McCain's mother speak to the Texas delegation  over breakfast. Karl Rove and Roger Williams then spoke at lunch. Both of them moved the audience with considerable skill.  I managed to peel off in the afternoon to get some work done before racing over to Minneapolis for the McCain Aviators National Finance meeting.  I met up with Charles Eskridge of Susman Godfrey.  Charles and I are co-chairing the "lawyers for" groups in Texas for John McCain and John Cornyn. (I'm now doing the same for Pete Sessions in Dallas). We also visited with Ted Cruz (former Texas S.G. and now with Morgan Lewis) and J.C. Boggs (Washington, D.C.).  Charles and I also visited with John McCain's mother who was also there.  I cannot believe that she's as old as she is. She was incredibly sweet and energetic.  I thanked her for coming to our breakfast, and we talked about her son, of course.  She said she'd had more she wanted to say to us at breakfast but there were so many of us that she didn't want to hold people up.  I told her to come back whenever she wants. Charles, his wife and I then shared a cab back to St. Paul for the start of the convention.  I ran into Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas on the way in.  We'd met the day before at the Lawyers for McCain meeting.  As we waited in line we discussed our respective law practices and the costumes the Texas delegation wears. The speeches you've already seen or read about so I won't attempt a rehash. I'm an alternate delegate here, meaning that I sit in the seats behind the Texas delegation and come to the floor only when my appended delegate, Johnny Lopez, decides to come off.  While some of the alternates have yet to make it to the floor at all, Johnny, unprompted, called me down at about 7:00 and left me on through the rest of the evening.  From the floor the speeches were extremely well received.  I didn't get to see the network coverage. I'm watching KBH deal with a throng of media outside of our breakfast right now. I'll visit with her briefly before I head back in.
-- David J. Schenck