This will be my last RNC post.

Friday started out with the news that I might interview Henry Kissinger, a man whose deeds and intellect I’m mightily afraid of. I was given the task because I’m always the earliest low-level employee to show up. Kissinger is considered old stuff by the established journalists I was working with – none of them could spare a moment of covering McCain’s upcoming speech to talk to the aging icon.

So I got the assignment. I had about three hours to prepare for my interview, which was not enough. I was assigned to ask only questions on Palin’s foreign policy experience, to plump up another reporter’s long-ish story on it.

When I arrived outside the restaurant, only one other reporter was there – Chuck Plunkett from the Denver Post. He told me he was nervous. I concurred.

We were eventually led in. There was Kissinger, planted on a black leather couch at the farthest corner of the restaurant. I sat next to him, Chuck on my other side. You can read what happened.

It was not a great interview, certainly one of the worst I’ve done. But then, he’s my first major subject, and it didn’t go terribly. I am hoping to score some time with him while I’m in Delhi, and prepare a lot more beforehand.

Speaking to him was like communing with a large, glistening brain. His sharpness was palpable, his empathy, not so much. He smiled a couple of times and made jokes, but mainly he was all business. It struck me how uncomfortable he was speaking outside of his “field of competence,” as he put it, that of foreign policy. But as soon as I introduced it – in the form of the India America nuclear deal – he visibly perked up. His speech was actually clearer. Continue reading →

It ended up being me, Kissinger and a reporter from the Denver Post on a couch in a restaurant here in the Xcel Center. Here’s how adorably harmless Kissinger looked:

I didn’t ask as incisive questions as I should have. I was nervous, intimidated. I said stupid stuff. It’s really hard to hear him, although he perks up when he talks about India and sounds clearer, because it’s actually his line of work. Check it out.

Oh, and I’ll post the Dhillon interview tomorrow. Also notes from tonight’s floor. Too tired.

You may want to go ahead and skip to “Continue,” so you can read the transcript as the audio plays (I didn’t want to put the whole thing on this page – too long).

K=Kissinger M=Me/Mallika DRP=DenverPostReporter

M: I basically want to know how important you think foreign policy experience is in this election.

K: In what…general?

M: For the voters, yes.

K: Foreign policy is my field I spend all my life thinking about it so obviously I think it’s a key issue of our time.

M: Do you think Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience is something that should be thought about?

K: What?

M: Palin, Sarah Palin.

K: Until recently I thought that primarily about Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience, that that’s the more relevant issue when people are voting.

DPR: And does the Biden pick help satisfy any concerns about Barack Obama?

K: I have a high opinion of Biden. I’ve known him for a long time. Fundamentally the president makes the decisions, not the vice president. Continue reading →

I wrote a post on the Reuters blog here.

Please note that my father is so far the only one who has commented on it (he tends to do that :]).

To sum it up, a bunch of Indian-Americans (and many others here) thought the convention was actually happening in Minneapolis. That’s because both cities are technically hosting (neither is capable of accommodating the crowds on its own). But they’re both hosting it in name only, because EVERYTHING happens in St. Paul.

When I went to the Indo-American dinner Tuesday, it was in Minneapolis. I wondered at that; it takes a good forty minutes to get out there from the Xcel Center.

Once everyone was leaving the dinner, I realized what had happened. Practically all of these guys are staying in Minneapolis, and let me tell you – that trek is frustrating to make. Public transportation in the Twin Cities is not nearly extensive enough to manage it, plus a large area around the convention is blocked off to anything but registered vehicles (I was originally staying with a newspaper lady out in Minn., but Reuters switched me to their hotel complete with direct shuttle after it took me THREE HOURS to come in on Monday. In fairness, the buses were riding on holiday schedule).

People staying in Minnesota are usually without car and generally not allowed on the shuttles – which tend to be for delegates or press. So they’re taking cabs. That adds up to about $50 bucks a day. No small price to pay, but they love McCain. Continue reading →

I was out on the floor tonight running discs back and forth for a Reuters photographer. Before the speeches began, I ran into my old friend Gaekwad. Tonight he had donned a handsome black Nehru jacket. I complimented him on it and he responded,

“Thank you. It’s important to keep some of yourself.”

It was a poignant thing to hear out there in that sea of white people. Each time I spotted a fellow brown, I felt as though I were viewing myself as a child, alone in a Dallas public school, sure that no one could understand me or my family, and especially not the country we had come from.

But Gaekwad had it right. As I reported yesterday, these pro-McCain Indian Americans have India at heart when they support him. That they can join forces with people so dissimilar from them is unnatural, and nice. They do it with gusto.

I met Swadeep Nigam, a delegate from Las Vegas. He was excited about Palin. I asked him what he thought about the grandchild and he told me we all have problems in our families. He praised her as one more in a line of women politicians – listing off Indira Gandhi and China’s Annette Lu as some others. Here’s Nigam, looking proud:

Gaekwad found me later and made a point to introduce me to Charlie Crist, governor of his home state, Florida (Did I tell you G is an honorary county sherrif back home? When I asked him how he managed to swing that, he said if you get involved, people will start to give you things.) That was a sort of awkward meeting, seeing as Gaekwad could say nothing to Crist save that I work (temporarily) for “Rooters.” But it was very uncle-ish and cute.

Continue reading →

Tonight I attended a meeting of mainly wealthy Indian businessmen. They were gathering to celebrate the impending nomination of John McCain by his party, and their role as visibly political Indians.

The first man I spoke with was Prakash Puram, a staunch Republican since 1978, when Republican senators helped him get a visa for his mother. He told me this:

“The Democrats didn’t help me at all. And the Republicans who helped me said, ‘Remember this when you grow up. Do something for the party.'”

The Republicans were smart. They got a donor for life.

He likes them for other reasons too, he hastened to tell me, because they believe in the values of religion and family (every one of the people I interviewed said the same thing). When I asked him if the Republican emphasis on Christianity bothers him at all, he told me that religion of any kind is good.

Puneet Ahluwalia was there, a business partner of George Allen’s. On Allen’s macaca moment, he had this to say:

“I think Biden should be famous for the donuts thing, and Hillary for the Gandhi at the gas stations. With Allen, it was just a word. I know him so well. He didn’t mean it.”

Ahluwalia said he was one of the few people who emphasized Allen’s record of supporting the US India nuclear treaty (a point nearly everyone there mentioned in McCain’s favor as well), when the macaca hit the fan. He worked out of Allen’s campaign office and now partners with him as a consultant for IT businesses.

The event was full of big-shots like him, one of them – a Dr. Sambhu N. Banik – was appointed a member of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities in June. By Bush himself. Banik insisted I stand in front of his hotel while he ran up to get pictures of him with Bush Sr. and George W., and one of his wife with McCain. Continue reading →

One of the more interesting takes on the whole teen pregnancy upset was given to me by Brian Weber, a 25-year-old delegate from Dodge City, Ks:

“I don’t think it’ll have an effect on elections. I think Palin’s daughter’s choice to have her baby will ring true with Americans.”

Weber says he has spoken to many delegates from many states, all of whom say this hasn’t shaken their faith in the McCain/Palin ticket; instead, Weber said, they feel this is proof that the pro-life conviction can be put into action by anyone in any sphere of life. That view is shared by James Dobson, founder of the conservative Focus on the Family. According to an NPR story, he:

“commending the Palins ‘for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.’ He added: ‘Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord.'”

Continue reading →

I overheard some writers from the Daily Show talking about how great it is that Hurricane Gustav has been downgraded: now they can write some jokes about it, they said.

That kind of practicality is pretty much the attitude shared by the rest of the convention. The hurricane itself is treated not so much as a reality here as it is a political device, part of the strange tableau that began at the DNC when the Clintons delivered so magnificently. The overriding sentiment (at least in the Reuters camp) is that this is a good thing, news-wise. Will the Republican Party use this opportunity to distance itself from Bush’s divisive legacy, promising a new era marked by restraint and candor? Or will the toned-down convention be a let-down – a sparse preview that leaves Americans bored? Either way, the news will be interesting. Way to go, hurricane.
Continue reading →