Delegates eager for firsthand view

Eager to hear President Bush and other party luminaries without the filter of the news media, local delegates to the Republican National Convention scoff at the idea that such gatherings are a waste of time and money.

Delegate Grant Peterson said he’s heard journalists suggest that on television, but doesn’t know anyone who actually believes it.

“I don’t know who is saying this,” said Peterson, the Stevens County GOP chairman, who is attending his second national convention. “There is so much excitement and electricity being on the floor.”

Spokane attorney Bill Hyslop, another Eastern Washington delegate to the Republican National Convention, agrees.

“It is not a waste of time and money at all,” said Hyslop, who was also a delegate to the national convention in 2000. “It’s a unique opportunity to support the president.”

True, there was never any doubt about the GOP’s choice for its candidate. But that’s similar to the last time Peterson attended a national convention, in 1984, when he led the Washington state delegation and Ronald Reagan ran for his second term.

That’s also the last time Washington voters picked a GOP candidate for president.

Modern conventions are less about picking a nominee and more about re-energizing the party faithful for the final push to Nov. 2.

“We’ll have a totally unified group listening to the president talk about what he’s accomplished and where he’s going,” said Peterson. “He’s got a strong message.”

A former Spokane County commissioner, Peterson later went to work in the Reagan administration, as assistant director for the Federal Emer-gency Management Agency, and stayed on to work for the first Bush administration. Now an executive for a company that specializes in homeland security and domestic preparedness, Peterson returned to the state about 26 1/2 years ago, and lives outside of Chewelah.

Hyslop expects the experience to be much like it was in 2000, when the highlights included being on the floor to hear Bush, Dick Cheney and the other speakers. A co-chairman of the Bush/Cheney campaign in Eastern Washington, Hyslop has been a Bush supporter since the former Texas governor began his quest for the nomination in 2000.

“He struck me as a real leader and a real decision-maker,” Hyslop, a former U.S. attorney, said. “He has met and far exceeded my expectations.”

While both Hyslop and Peterson campaigned for the right to attend the convention, Diana Wilhite didn’t set out to be a conventioneer when she attended her precinct caucus this spring.

“I didn’t really have it on my schedule to go,” said Wilhite, a city councilwoman from Spokane Valley.

But as she attended the county and then the state conventions, “a number of people urged me to run” for alternate. At the same time, other people were saying they wouldn’t go to New York City because of the prospect of terrorism at the convention.

“I’m not going to let the fear of terrorism keep me locked in Spokane,” said Wilhite, a longtime GOP activist who is attending her first national convention. “I’m not going to be afraid to travel. You can’t live your life in fear.”

The more she thought about the convention, the more she decided it would be good to attend and show her support.

“We’ll re-energize ourselves, because it’s been a long campaign season already,” Wilhite said. “We need to get fired up again.”

She, too, is eager to see the president, Laura Bush, Cheney and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “up close and personal” rather than “regurgitated through the media.”

There will also be a chance to look down the road to 2008, Wilhite said. Like other delegates and alternates, she received an engraved invitation to a party being thrown by Sen. John McCain of Arizona and is eager to attend.

Wilhite was an early supporter of Bush when he defeated McCain for the nomination in 2000. She might back McCain the next time around. If not, the other likely contenders for 2008 will also be in New York.

“I really like it if I can see the person” before making a decision, she said.