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TAWANA Brawley was there, with her doting ma. So was Garrison Keillor. The newspapers ran daily list-ings of “Press Conferences,” “Protests at Authorized Sites,” and “Protests and Rallies at Other Sites.” The state’s boosters passed out literature explaining how “unique soil) and climate conditions produce the world-famous Vidalia Onion.” The same boosters had tried to close the city’s strip joints, only to be thwarted by a judge; the one I passed, on a long and rambling search for a road that would take me to the airport, was hung with bunting. It was, after all, the site of a great national convention.

Atlanta is making a bid to be a major convention center. I would be more kindly disposed to its efforts if I had not been plunked, with many another reporter, into a hotel in Smyrna, a good $25 cab ride from anyplace in particular.! The hall, however, was spanking clean and functional. I had a seat, next to Victor Navasky of The Nation, with a clear view of the podium, though at a distance which shrank all the speakers to the size of Michael Dukakis.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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TAWANA Brawley was there, with her doting ma. So was Garrison Keillor. The newspapers ran daily list-ings of “Press Conferences,” “Protests at Authorized Sites,” and “Protests and Rallies at Other Sites.” The state’s boosters passed out literature explaining how “unique soil) and climate conditions produce the world-famous Vidalia Onion.” The same boosters had tried to close the city’s strip joints, only to be thwarted by a judge; the one I passed, on a long and rambling search for a road that would take me to the airport, was hung with bunting. It was, after all, the site of a great national convention.

Atlanta is making a bid to be a major convention center. I would be more kindly disposed to its efforts if I had not been plunked, with many another reporter, into a hotel in Smyrna, a good $25 cab ride from anyplace in particular.! The hall, however, was spanking clean and functional. I had a seat, next to Victor Navasky of The Nation, with a clear view of the podium, though at a distance which shrank all the speakers to the size of Michael Dukakis.