No matter how stirring the words of Colin Powell or how poignant the tributes to Ronald Reagan, the Republican National Convention appears to be no match for the remote control, the kids or the allure of a starry summer night.
“I flipped around,” said Marge Winter of Homer Township, who caught bits and snatches of convention festivities on the tube Monday but mostly channel-surfed past. “But I’m sick of it already. It’s just a big hoopla.”
Indeed, there seemed a disconnection between events in San Diego, filled with political and media bigshots, and the households of metropolitan Chicago, with voters often leery of political rhetoric and too busy to listen to it anyway.
“I’m not interested in it at all,” said Tinley Park bus driver Marikay Keith, literally wearing disdain on her chest in the form of a frown-face T-shirt emblazoned with “Who cares.”
“I really haven’t seen anybody who’s said anything that matters to me. What (Republicans) need is a woman up there who has raised kids on her own, who can balance her own budget on a shoestring.”
Like many parents, John Arnold of South Holland was too busy to watch Monday’s convention opening.
“I’ve got a 2-year-old,” explained Arnold, 30. “I played with him and we watched Barney tapes. We did the bath routine. And then we went on to bed.”
To Henry Tramer of Hyde Park, there simply was no compelling reason to watch. He has watched conventions in the past, but expects the Republican and Democratic affairs this year to be boringly predictable.
“I don’t think it’s going to give any candidate a boost because people are not going to be watching,” said Tramer, 62.
Instead of the convention, Tramer watched a Cubs game Monday night, then turned off the television and signed on to the Internet.
To be sure, there were those whose uninterest had a partisan bent. Unlike Arnold, 27-year-old Gerald Roland had time for the convention, but not the inclination.
“There were much better things to watch,” said Roland, of the South Side. First, he tuned to a Discovery Channel documentary on Kodiak bears. Then he turned to “Tales From the Hood” on HBO.
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“Then I went to sleep,” Roland said. “I always watch the Democratic convention, never the Republican.”
Jerome Gray, a Joliet loan officer who thinks of himself as a political independent, said he found the convention a turnoff.
“I flashed through the channels last night, but when I saw some of those speeches I immediately turned away,” said Gray, 27. “It just seems like right now, politics is all advertising.”
The assembly did have a sprinkling of cheerleaders.
“It was pretty good, I liked all the speeches,” said 43-year-old Dave Wonderland of Beach Park, a purchasing manager for a medical supply firm.
“Like Nancy Reagan. I think she did a beautiful job last night. And of course, Bush, when he spoke. It was good. It was real good. And Colin Powell’s speech was excellent. It was right to the point.”
Raul Campos, 29, who works the night shift as a maintenance engineer for a department store, said he caught some of Powell’s speech during a break and was impressed.
“It delivered,” said Campos, who lives on the Southwest Side and leans Republican. “I was happy with what I heard.”
More often than not, though, voters asked to critique the convention so far said they hadn’t watched and had little interest in it.
To Scott Flesch, 48, a Libertyville camera shop owner, it was simply too early to focus on the presidential campaign.
“I haven’t really paid that much attention to what they’re doing, and I probably won’t until after the conventions are over,” said Flesch, who isn’t wild about Dole or Clinton.
“Although I did like the one bumper sticker that said Clinton was doing the job of three men: Larry, Curly and Moe.”
For text of speeches delivered at the Republican convention, use keyword Tribune. Select Top Stories and click on Republican National Convention.