8:15 a.m., Embassy Suites Cleveland, BFE
Florida Secretary of Agriculture Adam Putnam reassured his hungover cohorts, members of the Florida delegation to the Republican National Convention, that their slog down to an Embassy Suites Cleveland banquet hall for an 8 a.m. "Florida Grown" breakfast would be well worth it. Besides, there was a bloody Mary bar on one side of the room and a mimosa bar (featuring Florida orange juice) on the other, if anyone was in need of a little hair of the dog.
“Drink lots of orange juice,” Putnam joked, “because we've got to move product.”
Putnam is a rising star in GOP politics — a likely Republican candidate for governor in 2018. But two of the national-level speakers he introduced stole the show. Neither mentioned Republican nominee Donald Trump, but there was plenty of talk about the Judeo-Christian values they believe the U.S. was based upon.*
The first was Col. Allen West, a controversial former GOP Congressman from South Florida known for saying perhaps not very well-thought-out things, including calling himself “a modern-day Harriet Tubman.”
West was heavy on the biblical references.
“We are at a decisive moment for the restoration of our constitutional Republic,” he said. “We need to always remember that God is on our side and we need to go out and be strong, and be courageous, and not be weak, not be afraid to speak about the principles and values that our founders bequeathed to us. Because this is our time, ladies and gentlemen.”
The “God on our side” bit, of course, got a certain Bob Dylan protest song stuck in our head. You know the one. Has West heard that song? No? Oh.
West also trashed Democrats as being “a party of slavery, it has been a party of secession, it has been a party of segregation, it has been a party, now, of socialism,” because he's apparently never heard of the Southern Strategy or seen the absurd amounts of money funneled into Democratic campaigns and Super PACs.
The second speaker?
None other than Dr. Ben Carson, the failed presidential candidate who endorsed Trump after dropping out a few months back. Drawing a contrast to Democrats' tendency to recruit A-list celebrities and rock stars to their events (something at which the GOP falls flat), Putnam called Carson one of several “rock stars of life.”
Carson, with his sleepy demeanor, seemed an odd choice for an early-morning event packed with delegates trying to shake off the prior night's Scotch. But his star power — and his message chock-dull of Jesus, bootstraps and transgender hate — got their attention.
He said he worried about the consequences of taking God out of government and schools, then, perhaps ironically, spoke about the importance of an informed populace (which, in our estimate, means not being subjected to a narrow, dogmatic and unscientific worldview, but what do we know?).
“The fathers of our nation said that our system and our nation is dependent on a well-informed and educated populace,” he said. “If we ever become anything other than that, the nature of the country would change. Why? Because the people of the country would be easy to manipulate. And that's exactly what's happening today.”
Wait, what? This guy? Calling for a more informed populace?
Surprisingly, he went on to stress the importance of providing education and training to incarcerated people.
“These people are valuable resources for us,” he said. “We should be looking for ways that we can develop them so that they can become part of the strength and fabric of our country.”
But before we could start to think that maybe the ole doctor was starting to make sense, he turned his attention to LGBT equality. The Democrats’ call for an end to discrimination against transgender people? Proof, he believes, of the dangers of secular progressivism.
“For thousands of years, mankind has known what a man is and what a woman is,” he opined. “Isn't that the height of absurdity?”**
He went on to compare being trans to waking up one morning and deciding you want to be from Afghanistan because you read a book or watched a movie about the country.
Carson and West spoke at the breakfast, ostensibly, because of their Florida ties (West used to reside in the state, and Carson said he lives there now). But University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus, in town for the convention, pointed out that the two speakers, each African-American, may have been placed on the same roster to counter Trump's minority problem (he got all of 1 percent of the black vote in one poll).
“Obviously, Florida is a very diverse state,” she said. “The idea of Trump being so inadequate at explaining inclusiveness” means that party officials in crucial states like Florida need to pick up the slack.
Carson will also headline Tuesday night's schedule of speakers inside the arena at the RNC.
*It's not.
This article appears in Jul 14-21, 2016.