Who knows how to party? The Ohio delegation knows how to party. That’s right, the lucky Buckeyes got what I think is the best draw in the city with their delegates, staff, families, fixers, riggers, middlemen and hangers-on lodged in the Curtis Hotel at 14th and Curtis streets, right in the middle of all the buzz and hubbub of downtown during the Democratic National Convention. Not only did they get some of the choicest digs in the city (I’ve already met people staying as far away as Cherry Westminster and Aurora, so no bitching, Idaho), but directly downstairs is the Corner Office, which, for the duration of the convention, has been transformed into the MySpace Café and Democratic National Convention Theme Bar and Restaurant.
Not for nothing, but if you’re a civilian feeling a little left out of the whole DNC experience, this is the place to be. Situated smack in the middle of the wreck that 14th Street has already become (a stretch filled with glaze-eyed tourists, locals, Secret Service agents, lost delegates, cops, tour busses, satellite trucks and more T-shirt hucksters than the Atlantic City boardwalk), the MySpace Café and Good-Time Food-e-Teria is essentially ground zero for delegate watching and press-credential abuse. You want to lift a floor pass for the roll call vote? This is the joint. Watch sixty-year-old Clinton superdelegates trying to sell out for a four-way with a Florida delegate and her girlfriends? Oh, baby…
There’s also just a lot of good, old-fashioned drinking and schmoozing and politicking going on at the bar, with protesters and pimps and operators both big and small pressing the flesh and kissing any ass that presents itself. It’s American politics in action, kids, and while a seat at the bar here might not be the same as floor passes for the Tuesday night Clinton speech, I can promise you that a stool stuck between a guy in town on the dime of Mercedes Benz and an impromptu strategy session from the Ohio players is a helluva lot easier to get. -- Jason Sheehan
