It was an odd moment for a protest. The delegate crowd had thinned, and Dr. Ben Carson was on stage suggesting that Hillary Clinton was godless late Tuesday, when a woman began screaming, “Hillary! Hillary!”
Delegates and guests quickly drowned her out with the chants used whenever Trump rallies were interrupted: “USA! USA! USA!” They held up clothing to block TV cameras from recording a banner she held.
Others surrounded her, including John Frey, a Connecticut state representative who is one of three sergeants-at-arms. Security escorted her outside.
Frey said he is aware of two protesters being ejected on each of the first two days of the Republican National Convention. Given that each attendee passes through metal detectors, the sergeants-at-arms are most concerned about an altercation between delegates and protesters.
Some Republicans engaged the woman in a tug of war over a banner she carried.
“We discourage that,” Frey said.
Carson, the former pediatric neurosurgeon who ran for president, was just finishing when the woman began screaming. He noted that Clinton’s senior thesis in college was about Saul Alinsky, the legendary Chicago community organizer.
“He wrote a book called “Rules for Radicals,” Carson said. “It acknowledges Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom. Now think about that. This is our nation where our founding document, the Declaration of Independence talks about certain inalienable rights that come from our creator, a nation where our Pledge of Allegiance says we are ‘One nation under God.’ This is a nation where every coin in our pockets and every bill in our wallet says, ‘In God We Trust.’ So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that.”