The Mood

It’s hard to know what to say about one’s anecdotal quasi-reporting from talking to people at a convention. But my overwhelming impression of the Twin Cities is that the GOP faithful are in a pretty subdued, unexcited mood. You can see some of this on television. But beyond what you can see, I went last night to a party at James Lileks’ house that was full of conservative types. And plenty of people were there, just enjoying some drinks and snacks on his lawn while the convention was taking place a few miles away — nobody seemed interested in watching the proceedings on TV or particularly excited about any of the speeches upcoming later that night or on subsequent nights.

A colleague and I got to talking to a somewhat tipsy conservative woman who put her glasses on and hair up à la Palin and asked us to guess who she was. My colleague said “the next Vice President of the United States?” She laughed and said he was the first person to put it that way, and that should tell us something. Then everyone chuckled. Now obviously there must be someone around here who expects the GOP to win, but the general sentiment is that it won’t happen and that despite conservative activists’ great love for Sarah Palin there still isn’t really anything to be excited about this election season.