Six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, President George W Bush flew to New York to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in the World Series baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
”Are you going to throw from the rubber or the base of the mound?” asked Yankee star Derek Jeter. ”If you throw from the base of the mound they are going to boo you. You really need to take the rubber.”
Bush, then at the height of his popularity and leading a nation at war with Afghanistan and in fear of an anthrax attack, asked if the fans would really be so mean. ”Yeah,” said Jeter. ”It’s New York.”
Three years later Bush is coming back to New York to a sceptical, if not downright hostile, public as the Republicans prepare to kick off their convention on Monday. In an ad broadcast in June to prepare New Yorkers, former Democratic mayor Ed Koch pleaded: ”While they’re here, make nice. Volunteer to show ’em the ropes. They won’t know uptown from downtown. They’ve never ordered pizza by the slice.”
But with only days to go the best they can hope for is that this city, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans five to one, doesn’t ”make too nasty”. It may be in vain. So numerous are the expected protesters at the presence of the ”Grand Old Party” in the city that its Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has spoken of them as a marketing opportunity.
The protesters, meanwhile, are making their own plans. At www.rncnot welcome.org, a website dedicated to protesting against the convention, a group called the Biotic Baking Brigade, spells out the basics of how to pie your enemy. Step one: ”Choose a worthy target. Any evil pompous evil-doer will do for a glouping.”
”Visitors to the city at the end of August may see illegal murals with political messages and the city itself may become a giant art installation,” warns Liza Featherstone in the leftwing Nation magazine.
”Don’t be surprised if you’re crossing the street and a traffic light flashes ‘Beat Bush’ instead of ‘Don’t walk’.”
But not all the demonstrations will be by unorthodox attention-grabbers. Among the more traditional acts of protest will be a parade of thousands of abortion-rights advocates marching across Brooklyn Bridge; the Hip-Hop Summit’s Poor People’s March to Madison Square Garden, where the convention is being held; the 5 000-strong permitless march of the poor being organised by a welfare mother from Philadelphia; and the huge demonstration planned for this Sunday, which the demonstrators insist will be in Central Park and the New York police are adamant will be on the West side highway, but which could reach a million-strong.
At least 20 000 security personnel, representing everyone from the Secret Service to civilian units of the Army National Guard, have been mustered. Given that the convention is expected to attract only 48 000 visitors, including delegates, lobbyists and journalists, this is the equivalent to one law-enforcement official for every 2,4 civilians.
Meanwhile, the FBI has been questioning dozens of protesters who plan to come to New York, asking them all three basic questions: were they planning to be violent, did they know anyone else who was planning violent acts and did they understand that it is a crime to withhold any information they might know.
The questioning immediately raised concerns about civil liberties, particularly after three young men, who were planning to come to New York from Missouri, were subpoenaed earlier this month and informed that they are part of a domestic terrorism investigation, without being informed on what grounds.
The fact that the focus has shifted from what will be said inside the convention to what might happen outside is a symbol of just how much has changed in the national political mood over the past 18 months. In January 2003, when the party declared its choice of New York (over New Orleans and Tampa), it seemed like a shrewd if cynical move.
The logic behind both the venue and the timing (the latest of any convention) was to bolster Bush’s status as a war leader, standing firm against terrorist attacks. As recently as July last year, former mayor Rudolph Giuliani was claiming that Bush could even be the first Republican to take the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984. ”New Yorkers like strong leaders,” he explained at the time.
But that was then. In January 2003 the nation was facing down the United Nations and preparing for war with Iraq. Bush had 59% approval ratings, 68% of Americans supported military force against Saddam Hussein and the Democrats were amassing a crowded field of contenders with no obvious frontrunner.
Today Bush’s approval ratings stand at 49%, 47% of Americans think going to war was a mistake and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, leads in 13 of the 17 key swing states, if only by a narrow margin in most of them. With the latest poll giving Bush 35% in New York against Kerry’s 53% he has about as much chance of taking New York as Hussein does of taking back Baghdad.
Opposition to the war was not insignificant at the time, but it had been marginalised. But the torture scandal in Abu Ghraib, Bush’s premature declaration of victory in Iraq, a stiffer-than- expected Iraqi resistance, a lack of international support and US military casualties that could reach 1 000 during the convention, have put the war into mainstream political debate.
Meanwhile, the findings of the 9/11 commission into the terrorist attacks, the publication of which has become a bestseller, have exposed institutional shortcomings that put a question mark even over what he hoped would be seen as his finest hour.
Sitting in a field last week just outside Orange, Connecticut, about 20 mostly young people were discussing non-violence. They were about two-thirds of the way through a 400km march from Boston, scene of the Democratic Party convention, to New York, where they plan to protest.
About two-thirds of the 50 or so on the march would describe themselves as anarchists, although there are Buddhists, pacifists and others for whom knowing that they could not bear another four years of Bush is enough.
None of these people have walked all this way to ”make nice”. But this particular band of vegan, non-hierarchical political travellers are not out to carve great chunks out of the Big Apple either. Like the authorities, however, they feel the need to be prepared if things do spiral out of control. With no venue so far agreed for the main demonstration on Sunday, and tempers rising over the FBI’s tough stance, there is plenty of scope for tensions to flare into something more serious.
The last time the issue of violence dominated a national political convention was Chicago in 1968. Back then there was a war in a far-off land, a divisive Republican candidate in Richard Nixon and a mayor who pledged not to compromise. The police responded to verbal abuse from protesters and occasional missiles with tear gas and occasional beatings.
It was a public relations disaster for the Democrats, and Nixon went on a few months later to defeat Hubert Humphrey.
With Kerry taking a moderate stance on the war, these demonstrations have little, if anything, to do with the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, many believe that whoever is responsible, a rash of violence so close to the election will once again benefit the Republicans. — Â