Politics goes to their heads

Edward Lackey, a 90-year-old delegate from Ormond Beach, Fla., not only decorated his cane, but made his own hat, taping on a wooden donkey -- which he admitted was heavy -- that a "mountain man" from North Carolina carved for him 50 years ago, he said. The donkey dispensed cigarettes out the back.

On a convention floor speckled with headgear -- from a foam Statue of Liberty headband strung with Christmas lights to a Revolutionary War-style tricorn -- Lackey's stood out. And that, for any hat wearer, is the point.

With proud friends and family watching back home, scanning the TV for a familiar face in the crowd, wild hats are to delegates what a hot-pink suit is to a businesswoman at a meeting full of men: attention.

That was certainly true for Linda Spencer of Amelia Island, Fla. She wore a big-brimmed red hat on the convention floor hoping to make herself visible 2,000 miles from home.

"They wanted to make sure," Spencer said, "that they could see me."