Ed Morrissey

Unless you've attended conventions in the years after 1998, you have no idea how isolated they are. I attended GOP conventions in 2004, 2008, and 2016 on media passes, and the layers of security circles were bonkers. The only one that really worried me was my first in 2004 thanks to the then-recent 9/11 attacks, but it was almost absurdly insulated from the rest of NYC. We got outside the security layers a little more in 2008, but only because it was in the Twin Cities and I didn't bother with a hotel room. I don't think we did anything in Cleveland in 2016 that wasn't at the hotel or inside the security perimeters.

That doesn't mean that radicals won't try to foment riots. But those will be so far away from the convention in Chicago that they might as well incite them in Gary.