With a hectic day and quick action, I was not able to live blog today. Steve Albertson has done a fantastic job of staying on top of things and provided great coverage throughout the night. I want to wrap up the night with some more sights and thoughts from day two.
There was some action before we even got to the Quicken Loans Arena, today. Most of the delegation attended a reception hosted by Dominion Power about 3 blocks from “the Q” as it is called, and we had to walk from the reception over to the convention, but right as we were trying to leave what appeared to be a Black Lives Matter protest came right by the building we were in, and we had to walk past them to get to the Q. I was able to get a picture of one of the signs these folks were carrying. These are the idiots we are fighting.
Tonight was the nominations for President and Vice President and the roll call of the states. Earlier in the day the news networks were speculating that there would be an effort to nominate Ted Cruz but it never materialized. Then there was concern that some delegates might attempt to invoke a rule 37 challenge to poll their delegations in an attempt to vote for someone other than Trump but except for Alaska it never really happened either.
There was an interesting moment early in the evening when the VA Delegation left the floor to have a quick delegation meeting. Cameras started following us and reporters were scrambling, and the rumor was that we were walking out. We had cameras in our faces the entire time we walked back to the meeting room, and I am told that both FOX News and NBC panned over out seats and speculated, “where’s Virginia?”
When we came back out we were swamped again with everyone wanting to know what was going on. Sensing the possibility of more fireworks from VA, about a dozen cameras and a gaggle of reporters surrounded our delegation during the roll call of the states, ignoring the other states, not wanting to lose their spot to watch the show. This was the scene for almost an hour as these guys below pretty much ignored everyone else, including when New York put Donald Trump over the top.
Well, we disappointed them. There were no fireworks, and Virginia’s vote was announced by Subba Kolla, the first Indian American to do so in the history of VA.
After Virginia cast it’s votes I traded credentials with Eugene Delgaudio, one of our alternate delegates from the 10th district, and let him spend the rest of the night on the floor.
I then went up to the guest area for Virginia to get a look at the cheap seats. It’s pretty high up here.
They did have a series of jumbo-trons set up, so people could see the speeches, and we watched Chris Christie give his indictment of Hillary Clinton. During Chris Christie’s speech, the crowd started up a chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!”
After hearing Donald Trump, Jr. speak, I moved down to where Virginia’s alternate delegates have been sitting, and I must admit to being a little jealous. Their section overlooks the FOX News broadcast set, and the alternates have apparently been rubbing elbows with all the FOX News celebrities. In the short time I was there I saw Geraldo Rivera, Chris Wallace, and Charles Krauthammer come by, and I was told that Brett Baier is apparently the “selfie king” who knows how to work every phone imaginable and can take a selfie with you in seconds. This is the view just to the right of our alternate’s section.
At the end of the night, we have our nominees for President and Vice President. With all the voting done, the only thing left for the next two nights are the big speeches. The big speeches for Wednesday will be Ted Cruz and Mike Pence, with Trump closing it out on Thursday.
More to come.
