After attending both Democrat and Republican conventions in 2000 and ‘04, I decided not to go this time. The past few week’s media universe orbited around the Olympic Bird’s Nest in Beijing and now the celestial center is a political fish bowl. Political Conventions have their place, and are wonderful for getting true-believers whipped into a corporate-sponsored frenzy and for parties to hone their predictable messages for the fall. But my experience as a cartoonist covering them was frankly not as much fun as it might sound.
At any convention site, once you have worked your way through the outer mazes and inner barriers of security armies, the first thing you do as a cartoonist is think about penciling the requisite “security cartoon.” Already the focus becomes too inward. What do my readers care about security at a political convention? You are in a confusing, concrete and steel encircled otherworld, choking with duct-taped-to-the-floor cables. It is a world that feeds on itself for microscopic slivers of “news” and “analysis” which are beamed out with frenzied urgency to shrugging viewers. Doesn’t matter what city you’re in, you get stuck in a climate-less, halogen-splashed, mall-like environment where time has no meaning. The senses are assaulted by the drone of ten thousand journalists working feverishly behind blue privacy curtains and the smell of freshly laid temporary carpet mixed with the vague scent of personal pizzas and half-full cups of coffee. And everywhere you look there are hundreds of plasma screens showing you the important and interesting “late breaking!” stuff you are missing elsewhere in the convention hall. It doesn’t bother me that the conventions are scripted. That is to be expected. But I am bothered by the sense of entrapment, which for me is creatively stultifying. When you are there, you have to get out of the bubble if you want to get any decent work done.
Some cartoonists thrive on the atmosphere, and do some of their best work in that environment. My friends Walt Handelsman, Rob Rogers, Tom Tomorrow and KAL are providing some great stuff from Denver. (I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed…) However, it is with great relief that I reside comfortably here in the real world – believing I can give you far better cartoon views of the convention forests so long as I’m not one of the trees.