GOP NATIONAL CONVENTION : Reporters’ Notebook : Loud-Cap Wearers Guide Convention Ground Game

In the sea of delegates, alternates, journalists, police, VIPs and janitors on the convention floor are a handful of men and women in some of the loudest and ugliest baseball caps imaginable--deliberately loud and ugly. Down on the floor of the Superdome, these are the men and women leading the Bush for President “ground game.”

Under the Caltrans-orange hats are the Republican National Committee’s regional political directors, each carrying a walkie-talkie and charged with trouble-shooting the state delegations.

The lollipop-yellow hats signify the men and women coordinating the floor demonstrations--who hand out the right signs to boost the right speaker, who pass the word on whether the cheer this time is “Four More Years!” or “George Was There!”

Under the leprechaun-green hats are the delegation whips. They are among the most underworked people in New Orleans -- their job is to prevent the outbreak of any disorder and rebellion.

Even if George Bush never gets to the White House, the White House has already come to New Orleans.

The Hyatt Hotel is just a walkway away from the Superdome, and is the headquarters for most news agencies. And one of its watering holes is on the White House lawn, more or less. The hotel rented a replica White House facade for the convention, a pine and painted-canvas scale replica 17 feet high. It comes unassembled, takes six people a whole day to set up and rents at $3,000 a night for galas (weekly rates available).

In this old Big Easy of a town, where even the parking lots offer “early bird” rates until 10 a.m., some things just kind of slip your mind.

Take Garland Robinette, the well-known anchor on New Orleans station WWL-TV. It wasn’t until security people freaked out when he tried to enter the Superdome on Sunday that he realized he’d forgotten to take his gun out of his briefcase.

News officials at the station said it was generally known that Robinette carried a gun for personal safety.

Hours later, his explanations accepted, Robinette was told all was forgiven, but the Republican National Committee pulled his credentials the next day and barred him from the Superdome.

California Rep. Daniel E. Lungren regaled reporters with a story of a dream he said he had Monday night (which turned out, he admitted, to be a pipe dream, but an amusing fiction): He dreamed that George Bush had picked a running mate, that his first name was Dan, he was conservative, he first ran for Congress in 1976, he was Indiana-educated, he was 41 years old and had three kids . . . And just when it was getting really exciting to Lungren, who has all those attributes . . . the new vice presidential candidate was from the other house of Congress. Easy come, easy go.