The real business of the modern political convention takes place over the Scotch and the cold asparagus. From brunch to midnight reception, deals are cut and business cards traded. Gossip is bartered and born. Passions are kindled, and not all are political. This is done in the name of democracy.
The party-hardy, whether they`re delegates, politicians or that privileged creature known as ”honored guest,” hit six or seven parties a day. Oh, beautiful, for open bar.
Come along on the party beat at the Democratic National Convention.
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”Oh, parties. That`s the only story in town,” says Sally Quinn, onetime Washington Post writer reborn as a novelist. ”The whole point of the convention is that you`re cruising. And at this particular convention, there`s nothing else to do.”
It`s Sunday night at the Woodruff Arts Center. A crush of sweat and silk. Three huge rooms are chockablock with political, business and media elite, nibbling on Tybee crab cakes, Savannah shrimp salad, Plains boiled peanuts and six kinds of peach desserts. Guests weave through the crowd with their eyes discreetly cast below the neckline. That`s name-tag level. Even celebrities enjoy the celebrity watch.
Look! There`s Jane Pauley, in a dotted red dress, hand in hand with her husband, Garry Trudeau. Was that Ed Asner? Wasn`t he at the Carter Center party last night, too, palling around with Andy Rooney? Is Stephen Stills here? He was there last night. Can you believe all the `60s counterculture gurus have gotten bald and fat?
Sponsored by the Atlanta Journal, the Atlanta Constitution and Cox Enterprises Inc., this is an important party, but not quite a Hot Ticket party. A Hot Ticket party is smaller. A Hot Ticket party does not include so many mere reporters. Most Hot Ticket parties include actor Rob Lowe.
”We`re on our way to the Portman party,” says Washington Post writer Myra MacPherson, who, with her escort, greets Quinn and her husband, Ben Bradlee, the Post`s executive editor. John Portman is the architect and developer who built much of downtown Atlanta. His is a ticket so hot you could fry an egg on it.
”We weren`t invited to that,” says Quinn, who is on her way to the Ted Turner party, another Hot Ticket but a few degrees cooler. Turner, the broadcasting mogul, is holding his party at CNN Center. Portman is holding his at his home. It is a small distinction that separates the Hot from the less Hot.
Quinn doesn`t mind missing a few Hot Tickets. ”What I`m really doing,”
she says, ”is getting stuff for a convention scene in my novel.”
Woe to the unwary. But such is the real business of the convention.
In the dessert room, next to the Harlem Renaissance exhibit, the talk is of AIDS, the budget, George Bush`s running mate, Jesse Jackson`s mood and which of the women displaying vast rolling plains of cleavage have had breast jobs.
John P. Fox, a vice president of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines in Miami, is there with his brother, Albert, who works for him in Washington.
”My office partner told me he does all the work while I play golf, so I`d better get to the convention and get some business,” says Albert, who is eating peach cheesecake with brandied peaches.
A lobbyist for Delta Airlines meanders by and trades business cards with John. They agree that Delta and Royal Caribbean could do things for each other. This is real convention business.
In the next room, a sudden twitter arises, like the breeze before a storm. Jesse Jackson strides in. He bestows kisses, he shakes hands, he stands in a welter of cameras and admirers and calmly eats a peach.
”Where`s Kovach?” he asks. ”Where`s Kovach?”
Bill Kovach, editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, materializes from the thicket of suits and skirts and cocktail glasses. The two men fall into each other`s arms like war buddies in the flush of victory.
”Wanna eat or wanna go through and meet some people?” Kovach asks.
”Meet some people,” Jackson says without hesitation. He drops the peach pit on the table, and the two head off.
This is the really real business of the convention.
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Now here`s a Hot Ticket. Or, to use a party parlance synonym, an ”A”
party. About 200 people, mostly Californians, have gathered Monday evening at the Carter Center as guests of San Francisco businessman Walter Shorenstein.
Everybody is Somebody. Jimmy Carter is here, but then he`s so much everywhere this week that the thrill is gone. Lloyd Bentsen is here. More important, so is Rob Lowe.
Actress Ally Sheedy, who says she is here to learn about the issues, scrawls notes on a manila envelope. Actor Mike Farrell and his wife, Shelly Fabares, hug the buffet table, where slices of shockingly pink salmon are arranged in shockingly large fleurettes. Actor Judd Nelson, tie loosened, sunglasses on, ultra-cool even on this 96-degree day, leans on the bar. Next to him is a very thin blond in a very tight black dress who is very obviously Somebody. But who? To the distress of many men in the room, her moussed, frosted locks cover her nametag.
Sen. Paul Simon, wearing a blue bow tie, tweaks Abe Rosenthal`s red bow tie. Rosenthal, former executive editor of the New York Times, tweaks Simon`s in return. ”You have ruined me with your bow ties,” Rosenthal says.
Richard Dennis, the multimillionaire Chicago commodities trader, wipes his dripping forehead. ”Excuse my sweat,” he says. ”I come to parties to remind myself not to go to too many.” However, later in the evening he is sponsoring one at the Ritz-Carlton downtown for former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt.
Everyone who isn`t eating, it seems, is staring at Morgan Fairchild, the actress. She says she is at the convention to catch up on the gossip she missed while she was in Europe this spring and to promote her causes such as AIDS research and women`s rights.
”I lo-o-ove pink organdy.” The speaker, a man so well-groomed that he gleams, fingers Fairchild`s short, flouncy skirt.
”Silk,” she corrects him. ”Listen,” she adds, ”Donna`s terrible at shipping. I ordered all sorts of things last spring and never got them.”
Donna, it turns out, is Donna Karan, the fashion house. The man, as Fairchild identifies him, is Frank Mori, who runs both Anne Klein and Donna Karan.
Mori hands Fairchild his card, which she slips into a gold lame purse full of other cards, the networking harvest of the past hour.
”You won`t have a problem anymore,” Mori promises.
This is the real business of the convention.
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Just like business, convention partying requires strategy.
According to Sylvia Smith Cornett, a convention junkie and honored guest from Alabama, the rules are simple. If you drink gin in one place, you drink Coke in the next. ”And,” she says, ”you rest in the morning.”
It`s Tuesday, 2 a.m. Cornett and Wade Baxley, an Alabama delegate, are leaving a party at the Marriott Marquis for Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young. It was a mildly Hot Ticket. The champagne was icy, and Crystal Gayle sang.
”Politics can be very dull except as people get to like each other,”
said Young, shaking hands with well-wishers on his way out. ”Parties get people to like each other even if they disagree.”
Cornett started the evening at a hospitality suite sponsored by Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO. She moved to two parties at the Hyatt. Now, she and Baxley are on their way to the Radisson Grand Ballroom for the end of a party given by the Massachussetts and New York delegations.
”You could go to 15 or 20 parties a day,” she says. ”I have invitations to go to, oh, my God. . .” She holds her hands a foot apart to indicate that it was many, many, many. Which ones make the cut?
”It depends on who`s having it,” she says. ”How important that person might be. You go to some because you have to pay your respects in some places. You go to some to see people who help you in politics. You go to some because they`re fun. Old friends might call you and insist you come to their parties. You always run . . . late. You go to one or two and you hear about others.” She tucks her black patent leather high heels under her arm.
”And you take your shoes off a lot.”
