PHILADELPHIA -- Every day at noon, a couple of blocks from the convention complex where GOP delegates held their caucuses, destitute men lined up for lunch on the sidewalk in front of the Ministry to the Homeless. It was not a photo op.
More than a few journalists were visiting Philadelphia -- in fact, about 15,000 of them arrived to cover the Republican National Convention. But midway through the week, an aide at the Ministry to the Homeless told me, not a single reporter had dropped by to inquire about the bedraggled spectacle.
"We feed homeless guys," the staff member said. "Yesterday, we fed 223." At least three-quarters of them, he estimated, were living on the streets in the City of Brotherly Love.
Is this kind of situation unusual for an American city? He shook his head. "There's homelessness wherever you go."
That night, I overheard a few delegates discussing news coverage of the convention. About the only negative theme emerging, they agreed, was that the event had been carefully staged. "If the criticism is that it's scripted," said one, "well, God bless it."