UNCONVENTIONAL ENCOUNTERS AT U.S. CONVENTIONS

American party conventions can be raucous events. They can also be a place for oracular utterings. However, this season has a different flavour to it

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OF the 10 presidential nominating conventions in the US that I covered as a foreign correspondent from the year 2000 onwards, the most exciting were the Republican National Convention in New York to re-elect President George W Bush and the Democratic National Convention in Denver that paved the way for the election of America's first black president, Barack Obama.

The 2004 convention in New York was more memorable for its perversions, which became a bigger talking point than what went on in Madison Square Garden, where Bush, at the zenith of his popularity after the US invasion of Iraq, was easily renominated.

Four years later, the Denver convention is remembered by most political reporters as the culmination of the hopes of the American people in the devastating aftermath of the financial meltdown of 2007-08. Revulsion in the US over lies by Bush about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for invading Iraq made the mass gathering in Denver more of a movement than any predictable political meeting.

I learned more about the innards of the American political facade during the New York convention than at any other single event while reporting from the US, which is unquestionably the most open system in the world for journalists.

As a frequent visitor to New York to cover the United Nations, what I noticed on the eve of that Republican convention was a visibly steep increase in the number of escorts in the lobbies and bars of fivestar hotels in Manhattan. Well before the convention opened, The New York Daily News ran an article predicting that demand for escorts would be at an all-time high when the Grand Old Party, a moniker for the Republicans, would be in town.

As it turned out, the Daily News story was only a teaser. The reality far outstripped the tabloid's prediction.