What an honor to be an alternate to this year’s sure-to-be historic Republican National Convention.
After arriving late Saturday afternoon and settling in with Georgia’s delegates and alternates we started the “get to know you” portion of the trip! At one point or another we have all crossed paths, but the coming together as one to elect Donald Trump as our nominee has given us all a sense of purpose to go along with the sheer weight of knowing that the “world is watching us.” So we better get this right!
Last night we were treated to an incredible evening of concert and food. The legendary 1970s rock band Three Dog Night performed at a pavilion overlooking Lake Erie where the sunset was incredible. Most everyone headed straight back to their hotels since breakfast and meetings began at 7:15 this morning.
The first speaker at breakfast was Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame and he was very entertaining. He let us know that eight short years ago he had attended his first Republican convention just to have something to do, and now he is a headline speaker for the convention. Robertson joked about how his father had endorsed Ted Cruz as his candidate and seemed to be speaking for the whole family but when he asked his mom about it she said, “Oh no, he meant only the Christians in the family.” That drew a thunderous laugh from the 300 or so in attendance.
Our second guest was Dr. Ben Carson. He quickly reminded the audience that our goal was to return America to its greatness and our position of leadership in the world to keep the world from “seeming like a third grade class with no teacher…” meaning chaos abounds when no one leads! The job of this delegation, Carson said, is to be sure that we elect Trump and keep the Supreme Court balanced so that our country is not changed forever– with no hope of getting it back. The audience was clearly in agreement and he too left with a standing ovation.
Our final breakfast speaker was our own beloved U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. No one commands the respect and admiration more than the senator. He spoke of “IDWIC”– the acronym for “I do what I can”– and challenged the room to be sure that every day we as Republicans go out and apply this acronym to our lives and make a difference. For the third time the breakfast audience rose to their feet to let Isakson and everyone else know that we understand our political and moral mission this week.
