Osler's Razor

Razor friend IPLawGuy (a former political correspondent for magazines including "Cat Fancy," "Jugs," "Southern Accents," "O, The Osler Magazine," and "Redbook") has been sending in regular dispatches from the Republican Convention in St. Paul. Below is his most recent report:

7:30 pm
Greetings from the Convention Floor. I'm sitting about two feet from the ropes around the stage in the Virginia section- lots of energy here tonight. This crowd is psyched up for tonight's show

Right now I'm actually standing during a musical interlude. The guy next to me looks to be about 65. He's wearing Crocs

7:45 pm
Oops! Turns out I was in the New Mexico Delegation seating area. So crocs man must have been a New Mexican. Carly Fiorina is speaking. Maybe 5 percent of the crowd is paying attention. Meg Whitman of eBay went before her. Same deal.

Joe Scarborough just walked by

The Virginia delegation is full of professional politicos. Many are not here in our section- they're off making deals or trying to do so or hoping to catch someone's eye

The other delegations are much more spirited. We should be farther back


This morning I went to the talk by Frank Luntz first. He was animated, hilarious and insightful. Then I raced over to see Ben Stein lead a panel speaking on retirement problems, social security and medicare.

Stein was funny, but he was only one of the panelists

8 pm
Michael Steele, former Lieut Gov of Maryland just went on. He's now chair of GOPAC. He's a dynamic African American speaker and very popular here

A fellow Virginian is the exec director of GOPAC. He spoke to the Washington State Delegation today. I went along and got a steak dinner out of it!

Earlier today I went to the convention center and with several hundred others helped pack relief packages for those affected by Hurricane Gustav. The project was sponsored by Target, Fedex and the Red Dross

Steele has us all chanting "Drill Baby Drill.". That's NOT on the cheer cheat sheet on the Delegate seats!

Anyway, John McCain came to the relief effort event, followed by a scrum of reporters. He came by our table and greeted many of us, including me. He said "Howya doing Tommy" so I was a minor celebrity with the others for a few minutes.