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of people, all of them there to see and hear and support him. But today, like every day since Irene’s funeral, he felt cold and hollow. Was he dead all over again? He thought he’d genuinely embraced his new life by joining this Taft Party campaign. But the knowledge that the last person he’d known from the past, however tenuous a link she may have been, was now gone, had left him irrevocably adrift in this century. He may as well have tossed his own soul into the grave with her, along with the Taft action figure he’d impulsively placed by her side in the casket while saying his final goodbyes.

And yet it wasn’t just Irene. Nor was it just the overwhelming vertigo that came from trying to navigate the conflicting agendas of all these Taft Party patrons. Something, he felt, was askew. Unsettled. What was that saying Archie Butt had been so fond of, about waiting for the other boot to drop? That was the sensation Taft was experiencing, that he was hanging in an ill-defined limbo, failing to grasp some fundamental piece of the jumble that made up his existence.

Well, he thought, at least he’d been able to grow his mustache back to its full glory. He wouldn’t have to stand in front of the assembled hordes of the Taft Party and recite his platform speech without the comfort of his luxurious twin tufts. That was something.

Not for the first time, he thanked the heavens that no one in the press had ever thought to refer to his whiskers as “Taft tufts.” Or, at least, hadn’t done so anyplace where he’d seen it. And then he sighed heavily as he remembered that, these days, even a child as young as Abby could likely use the Google to find fifty-three occurrences of that very formulation across eleven decades, without even trying very hard.

WELCOME TO THE 2012 TAFT PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION MEDIA CENTER

Created by the 2012 Convention Host Committee in conjunction with the City of Cincinnati, this online pressroom provides media with ongoing news updates, access to hi-res images, and factual information about the host city.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Where did Taft dine and drink in his native Cincinnati, then and now? What’s the best place to score Taft memorabilia? Where is the Party truly partying this weekend? We have the answers to all your questions regarding the big buildup to William Howard Taft’s historic platform speech at Great American Ball Park on Saturday. // Click for more.

DEMS AND GOP CONSPICUOUS IN THEIR SILENCE

Friday, June 15, 2012

The Democratic and Republican leaderships—up to and including their parties’ presidential candidates—surely have a strong opinion on the Taft Party National Convention. So why are they dodging questions and flagrantly ignoring it? Are they afraid—or really afraid? Cincinnati’s best and brightest discuss the issue. // Click for more.

THANKS TO TAFT, HOT DOG CARTS GO GREEN

Friday, June 15, 2012

Many Taft conventioneers have been asking themselves a crucial question over the last two days: what’s up with the hot dogs? Per William Howard Taft’s explicit request, all twenty-two of Great American Ball Park’s licensed hot dog vendors are now serving only organic, non-GMO veggie dogs for the duration of the TPNC. That’s right: no meat. But what do the vendors—some of whom, like sausage vet Larry Welton, have been serving all-beef wieners at Great American since the days of Riverfront Stadium—have to say about the switch? // Click for more.

CHICAGO PUNK BAND THE LOUSY KISSERS HOLD “FLASH CONCERT” IN FRONT OF GREAT AMERICAN BALL PARK

Friday, June 15, 2012

The first night of the Taft Party National Convention wound down with a series of speeches by Taft Party luminaries at Great American Ball Park. But the party was just getting started: a rowdy, inebriated, and by all accounts musically inept group called the Lousy Kissers pulled up to the ballpark’s front entrance in the beds of two pickup trucks equipped with generators. Within moments, an equally unsavory crowd had formed around them—and the band’s singer, later identified as Rob Reitman of Chicago, began screaming bawdy