Alternate Delegates Outside Republican National Convention Too Drunk, Relaxed to Notice Chaos
As a fight broke out on the floor of the Republican National Convention, those outside the arena remained unfazed and relaxed.
Chaos erupted within the Quicken Loans Arena here in Cleveland on Monday during the opening session of the convention, with GOP officials squashing a last-ditch effort by the #NeverTrump crowd to block Donald Trump's nomination and Gary Emineth, the chairman of the North Dakota GOP, submitting his resignation from the Trump campaign's finance committee in protest.
Outside the arena in "Freedom Plaza," the social area created by the hosting committee for attendees to eat, drink and mingle, the mood remained relaxed. Just a handful onlookers casually gazed at a screen hosted by Facebook (FB) - Get Report streaming the high-drama events inside.
One alternate delegate from Florida huddled in the shade over what probably wasn't his first drink. When a conference staffer joked that was where the "alcoholics" hung out, gesturing toward the man, she quickly corrected herself and apologized. But the man responded, "She's right."
He wasn't alone in enjoying the Ohio summer day as chaos unfolded in the air-conditioned arena. Other alternate delegates and invited RNC guests were seen doing the same.
Will Antico, a corrections officer and state alternate delegate from North Carolina, sat at a table in the sun -- unlike his Florida counterpart, without a drink. Originally from Long Island, N.Y., the former Navy man talked about how he had come to prefer Trump over former GOP rival and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. He saw both of them last year at a Republican convention in North Carolina.
"When I listen to Cruz, I feel like I'm sitting in church," he said. "But when you listen to Trump, you don't feel like you're sitting in church, you feel like, 'I'm listening to the guy who's telling me real straight, he's coming at me straight.'"
The person he'd like to see most at the convention, Antico said, is Sean Hannity. When asked about the fight on the floor, he said he really didn't know anything about it.
A Connecticut guest of the convention enlisted by the Trump camp as a whip for alternate delegates enjoyed his first drink of the day outside the arena as well. He hadn't heard about the conflict, either. A House of Representatives aide enlisted to escort high-profile attendees -- as in, the Trump family -- from the Westin hotel, where they are staying, to the convention hall spent the early afternoon at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said the first VIP wasn't arriving until six, and he had the entire day to kill.
House Representative Al Baldasaro, who is here serving as a delegate for his home state of New Hampshire, was on the floor when anti-Trump kerfuffle broke out. But he downplayed the excitement, saying it was really minor.
"Inside, you've got this many people in the Republican Party...you always get some that want things their way. And they're the minority. The RNC, respectably, gave them a chance, but everyone else was yelling, 'Trump, Trump, Trump, USA!' So it seemed like it was wild, but it really wasn't," he said.
Just as wild as day-drinking outside a sports arena on a sunny summer day.