The Irish Post’s PETER KELLY was a guest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Here he reports on the historic event
AS A guest at the Democratic Party’s National Convention, you witness the fireworks of showbusiness and politics combine. Up close and personal.
Political parties around the world traditionally have their annual conferences — next month it’s the UK parties’ turn. But in America it’s every four years, just months out from each presidential election. And they’re not just conferences. They’re ‘Conventions’. Abbreviated of course to the DNC or RNC respectively.
Witness the tightest security of a lifetime. Made stricter by recent threats to presidential candidate Trump and the impending Gaza protest locally for the Democrats. Cue helicopters ahead, a whole city’s police force in attendance, extra drafts from around the USA. And naturally, countless Secret Service and Homeland Security personnel to beef it up. Complete with their mini-tanks at road junctions near the Wembley-sized United (Airlines) Centre stadium. The industrial military complex meets the executive and legislative branch.
Yet despite this global-scale macro-level political extravaganza, with an auditorium filled with an estimated 50,000 attendees and 15,000 global media. what can be produced locally for the Irish diaspora? All politics is local, after all. And in our diaspora’s case. the parish pump has leverage as far as the Oval Office.
Cue the arrival then of Irish-America on scene, en masse. From Ireland’s US Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason, to current and former Democratic Congress members, governors, senators and White House staffers of Irish descent, descending. Each advocating for the ear of a potential and hopeful new US President and fellow Democrat, Kamala Harris and her likely administration’s team.
The successful Irish advocacy that worked so spectacularly on President Biden, must also trickle down with equal strength to his successor. And here in the Windy City is the chance to make that happen.
Substantially speaking, the DNC is not only a showbiz razmatazz to hear the finest-tuned of speeches from the Democrat hierarchy, but to network those who staff that hierarchy. Similar fine tuning of relationships and then potential policy and new pro-Irish immigration laws are on everyone’s radar across the ‘Irish caucus’. Relationships are everything in politics and this once in a half-decade opportunity to work not just the room – but the stadium – is an irresistible no-brainer.
Since the Kennedy Camelot era, Irish-American hopes have clustered around the Democratic Party. The teenager from Arkansas who met JFK with outstretched hands in that famous picture would grow into his successor as an equally prominent Irish-American advocate and substantially a co-guarantor of Good Friday Agreement. From that Clinton White House to the current Biden administration, ‘Scranton Joe’ refers to himself as ‘We Irish’ to passionately display his Irish credentials. This was repeatedly heard in speeches throughout Biden’s presidential visit to Ireland last year, accompanied by this correspondent throughout the country.
Mary McAleese when Ireland’s President would refer to ‘the spirit of the Gael is rising’ during her state visits overseas. Here in the most Irish of American cities, Chicago saw those once again determined Irish diaspora Gaels rise to work on shaping Ireland’s unlikely but envious access and influence upon the next US administration under a much hoped-for President Kamala Harris.
It’s now over to American voters and the Electoral College in a mere 70 days time to deliver the ultimate opportunity to make it all worthwhile.