THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270418
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 99 lines
In Democratic Party politics some states have more pull than others. And at national conventions, those others get assigned seats way in the back with . .
Unlike the San Diego Convention Center, where Republicans held their convention, Chicago's United Center offers few genuinely dismal views. After all, people who pay to see Michael Jordan generally expect to actually see him.
But compared to the breath-smelling vantage point Virginia Republicans enjoyed in San Diego, Virginia Democrats might as well be sitting with the janitors.
It's nothing a pair of good binoculars couldn't fix. And Virginia's Democrats are buffered from the back bleachers by a few dozen Wyoming colleagues.
Pity Guam and America Samoa. Those delegates traveled a bazillion miles to sit a $2 cab ride from the podium. Who says chivalry is dead?
Irene the donkey, mascot of the Alabama Democratic Party, is doing the Democratic National Convention in style - she's staying at a better hotel than the state's delegates'.
Her owner, retired Macon County farmer Willie Kirk, and a musician friend, Greg Lowery of Fayette, brought Irene to the convention in a red, white and blue trailer. It's parked in front of the Renaissance Hotel at the invitation of hotel manager Anthony Stewart-Moore.
The Alabama delegation got no such invitation. They're making do at an old inn with crumbling plaster and puny window air conditioners. Next time, check the Psychic Friends Network
Maybe doctors don't generally tell cancer patients to hire political strategists, but U.S. Rep. Norman Sisisky could have used one for his recent bout with colon cancer.
The rumor had spread - he thinks by Republicans - that the 69-year-old congressman was going to die last Oct. 31. It wasn't true, according to Sisisky's doctors. But who could know? Maybe the GOP's opposition research was much better than anyone was aware?
So, when the fateful day came, Sisisky stayed awake until midnight, ready to stare death in the face. It never came.
``Then I thought maybe they meant Pacific time. So I'd better stay up until 3.''
The Petersburg Democrat, who represents much of Chesapeake and Suffolk, has so far gotten no closer to the Great Beyond than Capitol Hill, and his prognosis is good. After surgery on his colon last August and 52 weeks of experimental chemotherapy, doctors say the cancer is gone.
``A good thing happened out of it, though,'' Sisisky said Monday, after the state Democratic Party's breakfast meeting. ``When they tried to cut money for pre-screening out of the budget, I knew enough to tell them they were crazy and make them put it back in.'' We have found the evil empire, and it's boring
Nearly 100 reporters, pens in hand and cameras ready, waited Monday morning at Grant Park, site of rioting in 1968.
They waited.
And waited.
Fifty-five minutes late, the Earth Island Institute and US McLibel Support Campaign arrived. All two of them.
With five minutes left to their scheduled 60-minute protest, they decided to join the Chicago People's Convention Coalition up next. That made for eight people on stage.
Dolphins are being caught in tuna nets, complained one.
Another: ``President Clinton is a Nazi!''
A third asserted that McDonald's Corp. is an evil empire.
``Kind of boring, isn't it?'' said Chicago Police Deputy Chief Ronald Jablon, standing by in case of trouble. ``Your people just aren't the same as they were in '68.'' He's got friends in high places
When President Clinton's staff told Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro that his old friend the president wanted him to stay in the same hotel, ``I said OK,'' Mauro related Monday.
So he checked into his room on the 34th floor of the Sheraton on Saturday. He noticed virtually no one else staying on his floor.
``However, I noticed the service was really good.''
Finally, Mauro interrupted a U.S. Secret Service agent, who was reading a book. ``I said, `Where is everybody?' ''
``Oh,'' the agent replied. ``Well, sir, this is the president's floor. All his people are on the train with him. He won't be here until Wednesday.''
Mauro asked how many people were staying on the floor until then.
``There's one other guy on this floor besides you,'' the agent replied. MEMO: Compiled from reports by staff writers Robert Little and Warren
Fiske, and by the wire services. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
mary Lily Nuckolls, from Grayson County west of Roanoke, reads
delegate rules upon entering the United Center as a first-time
delgate.
KEYWORDS: DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION 1996 by CNB