republican national convention Archives - My Name Is MichaelMy Name Is Michael

So I put my application letter to attend the Republican National Convention in the mail today. I thought you all might like to read it.

—

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally request access to the 2012 Republican National Convention as an Independent Blogger.

I have thought long and hard about how to present myself in this letter, trying to think of the “best” way to convince you that I’m not some kind of crazy hack that is attempting to get in to the convention as a joke. In doing so, I realized that if I had to trick you into believing that I was something I am not then I wasn’t being honest about who I was or why I wanted to attend the convention.

And that’s just not me.

So here’s my pitch, with no exaggerated claims or grandiose promises, and with all of the many reasons you can probably think of not to let me in stated right up front.

Continue reading →

So I’ve actually made it into this thing. At the current time I’m sitting on the lower deck of the St. Petersburg Times Forum waiting for the presentation to begin. I’m surrounded by media representatives. Bloggers. Journalists. Newscasters. I haven’t seen anyone I recognize yet as far as media personalities are concerned, and I really don’t suspect that at this particular event that I will. I’ve heard mention of Politico.com so far, and there is a large group from NBC sitting right in front of me.

For a moment when I first arrived I really wondered if I was actually going to be let into the door. They asked for my credentials, and I had to tell two different people I was registered as an independent blogger. When I mentioned that I had per-registered, though, they whisked me right through. I have an official badge with my name and web site on it and everything.

Lord, that makes me sound like an utter and complete rube, doesn’t it?

Tampa seems to be going all out to make a nice presentation. We were all given swag bags that have various items from sports teams and other organizations in the area. Bright House networks is on hand offering information on their internet access packages, so that causes me to wonder if there will be free wi-fi during the event itself. I may want to be safe and get myself a cellular modem just in case.

I’ll take pictures of all the various swag I’m picking up later. I’m feeling out-of-place enough without whipping the camera out during this thing.

The event itself should be starting shortly, so I’m going to finalize this post and make the rest of my updates via the live blog feature. I’ve recently updated the plugin so my individual tweets aren’t going to be linking back to this page any more. Check back here if you want to see non-truncated updates.