Farrell talks about protesters

Jerry Farrell Jr. at 10 p.m. Monday, Minneapolis time:

As I reported earlier, the Republican National Convention formally began today. The Connecticut delegation left our hotel at noon, stopped for a brief bite to eat and then arrived at the Xcel Energy Center at 2 p.m.

As the delegation was making its way the two city blocks from where our bus dropped us to the convention center, we were attacked by a group of protesters. My aunt Lynne Farrell, here as a delegate herself, got shoved into a concrete wall. Fred Biebel, who many in the Wallingford area know from his service as the Republican state chairman many years ago, had a protester grab his neck and take his credentials from him and was doused with bleach. Others in the delegation also got shoved and had bleach tossed at them.

I am going to guess that Biebel is in his mid-80's and has been a delegate at every Republican convention going back to the 1956 convention. Not exactly the best commentary on these protesters that they chose someone in their mid-80's to physically assault.

Police in riot gear did move in as the melee continued, but somewhat after the fact. After the police moved in, we were able to make our way to the convention hall and Fred got checked out by a doctor. The Secret Service was also able to get his credentials back to him; apparently the protesters are said to want to put their hands on the credential "tags," in order to come into the convention hall itself.

As was expected, today's session strictly consisted of reports by the various convention committees - credentials, platform, rules - and motions to approve those committee reports. Following the motions, First Lady Laura Bush and Cindy McCain came on stage and made an appeal for delegates to donate to charities doing work to help those along the Gulf Coast.

The day's session concluded by 6 p.m. and we were back on the bus to the hotel, where Lynne and I chatted with Lt. Gov. Mike Fedele and his wife, Carolyn. After dinner, we were walking back from a local restaurant and encountered state Sen. Dave Cappiello, who is running for Congress and had just arrived here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

The delegation will gather tommorrow morning (Tuesday) at 8 a.m. for breakfast, and hopefully, at that time will get a better idea of what the schedule will be for the next few days, as to which parts of the convention will proceed and which will be abbreviated.

That's all for tonight...I will report back in sometime tommorrow.