[...] Landon Allen, 63, is one of the new faces. An African-American originally from Virginia, Allen lives in Gretna and is retired on a disability from the Navy.
He said he has been a Republican for 26 years, working to get Ronald Reagan elected as well as Republican Sens. John Warner and George Allen of Virginia. Lately, he said, he's been reaching out to African-American veterans on behalf of the GOP.
He compared attending the convention to going to the Super Bowl of politics.
"It's a culmination of everything I've done," he said.
Eustis Guillemet, 70, of New Orleans has played at presidential inaugural balls as part of jazz great Lionel Hampton's band but has never attended a party convention before.
He said he became a Republican in 1980 after traveling with Hampton's band and "seeing the better part of America."
"The Democratic leaders are poisoning people's minds," said Guillemet, who also is African-American. "The Republicans deal with facts."
Frances Smith of New Orleans says she is a third-generation black Republican and sees her trip to New York as completing the arc of family fealty to the party that her grandfather, the Rev. Samuel McNeil Sr., began in 1952, when he was a delegate to the Chicago convention that nominated Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.
"It's a legacy that has been passed down to me," said Smith, 40, a small-business consultant. "He dared to be different." [...]
| That's the part of Bill Walsh's New Orleans Times-Picayune article "Delegate draw takes new approach: La. party members vote on who goes" that caught our eye
posted in articles on August 29, 2004 3:00 AM | t (0)
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