Speaking in Denver's Invesco Field a couple of hours before Barack Obama took the stage, Russia scholar and Ike-granddaughter Susan Eisenhower endorsed Obama and (as Obama himself did later that night) questioned John McCain's temperament.
No sooner had fellow Prospector Dana Goldstein and I arrived at the Minneapolis Convention Center, site of the Republican National Convention, yesterday that we encountered Susan's brother David, who, of course, is not only Ike's grandson (after whom Ike named the presidential retreat in Maryland's mountains) but also Richard Nixon's son-in-law. David Eisenhower is attending the convention as part of a group from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
I brought up his sister's speech and asked this member of Republican royalty whether he preferred McCain or Obama. "This is the first election in which I could happily vote for either candidate," said David, tactfully. He added that some polling had shown that this election tended to divide family members more than previous elections had.
Elsewhere in the convention center, hundreds of GOP loyalists were gathering for a screening of a new Jerry Zucker film that is a send-up of Michael Moore. As well, two costumed figures, one decked out as Abraham Lincoln and the other, in a colonial army uniform, as George Washington (though he was too plump to look like Washington; he looked more like Washington's chubby artillery chief, Henry Knox), wandered forlornly in search of some event they were supposed to enliven. They proceeded down a long hallway, opening one door after another, peering in, backing out, and continuing down the hall.
Will Washington and Lincoln find a home at the GOP convention? Will David Eisenhower come clean on his preference? The mysteries of the convention deepen.
--Harold Meyerson
