Because this year’s convention has gone mostly virtual, each state or territory sent in a 30-second video announcing their delegation’s votes for a presidential nominee, with many clips spotlighting a local landmark.
Rhode Island’s entry was filmed on Warwick’s sandy Oakland Beach, where state party chairman Joseph M. McNamara submitted 34 of the state’s 35 delegate votes to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. And McNamara, who once led a contentious, years-long campaign to give fried squid official recognition in the statehouse, made an enticing appeal to viewers at home.
“Our state appetizer, calamari, is available in all 50 states,” McNamara said, as a masked chef in a black apron silently held up a platter with crispy rings of the breaded seafood in its traditional local preparation: slathered in garlic, parsley, and sliced cherry peppers.
If that sales pitch was not the outright victor of Tuesday’s roll-call video montage, it was certainly the most irreverent. Or, at least, the most characteristically Rhode Island way to make an appearance on a prime-time national stage.
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