Boggs McDonald makes most of convention mingling

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2000 | 11:05 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA -- The South Philly neighborhood of aging, two-story brick row houses and narrow streets that is home to famed cheesesteak stand Pat's is another world from sprawling, new-growth Southern Nevada.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald on Wednesday ventured there on a side trip from the Republican National Convention and waited in line for a beef sandwich smothered in Cheese Whiz and onions.

"This is a lot different from the master-planned communities I represent," the Nevada delegate said with a laugh.

Shadowing Boggs McDonald on Wednesday offered both a glimpse at the job of a convention delegate -- networking, politicking, sight-seeing -- and a look at a rising player in Nevada politics.

The 37-year-old former Miss Oregon, a one-time newspaper reporter, UNLV marketing director and assistant city manager, also is the face of the self-styled new persona the party is promoting this week.

"Older, white males are the image of the Republican Party," Boggs McDonald said at a late-afternoon cocktail party for Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts, a high-profile black Republican in the House. "Now the image that's evolving is younger; it's more diverse; it's female. It's America."

Boggs McDonald said she got her first appreciation for America during the 10 years she lived as an "Army brat" in Germany and Italy. Several times as a girl she climbed the scaffolding behind the wall in West Berlin and gazed into the communist side of the city.

"The East German guards were staring right back at you with their (guns)," she said. "To know the wall came down, which I never thought would happen in my lifetime, and then being here and seeing Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, it really gives you a totally different perspective."

After a delegation photo Wednesday morning, Boggs McDonald had a mostly free day. She strolled through PoliticalFest at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, a maze of Republican displays: GOP buttons, a lifesize cutaway model of a section of Air Force One and a tribute to Ronald Reagan.

Boggs McDonald paused near a photo display of former President George Bush. She said she often has to remind people that blacks flocked to the Republican Party after Abraham Lincoln, but Franklin Roosevelt lured them away.

"Now we're at a crossroads," Boggs McDonald said. "I predict that increasing numbers of African-Americans will begin considering and then embracing the principles and the ideals of the party."

Black voters should be attracted to lower taxes and small business-aid, staples of the Republican diet, Boggs McDonald said.

But the issue that will pull them in is education, she said. Blacks want solutions to failing schools, and Republicans have innovative answers such as charter schools and voucher systems. She noted that her 4-year-old son attends a private school that costs more than the $10,000 she paid as a freshman at Notre Dame in 1981.

"His future is bright because we have the means, but what about the person down the street where the school is not performing year after year?" Boggs McDonald said.

In a cab on the way to lunch, Boggs McDonald scrolled through e-mail on her Palm Pilot hand-held computer. She sent a message to Las Vegas City Hall to table a pending business license in her ward until she gets back.

"It was some business with the word 'escort' in it," Boggs McDonald said later. "I don't know what it is, and anything with the word 'escort,' I want a briefing before I approve it."

After a few hours' rest, Boggs McDonald and chief aide Gia Rodriguez headed to tony jazz club Zanzibar Blue for the Watts event, already in full swing. A number of prominent national black leaders mingled in the packed room.

Boggs McDonald listened as Watts called for Republicans to energize blacks about Republican causes. "We've done a terrible job of marketing the party," he said. Afterward, Boggs McDonald introduced herself to people in the room, collecting business cards.

"She knows how to market herself," said Rodriguez, who has worked in city offices for 10 years. "Lynette has done more in her first year than many accomplish in their whole term."