By Ciaran Byrne

As the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) draws to a close and Kamala Harris prepares to face-off with Donald Trump, I’ve been remembering one of my most memorable weeks as a reporter.

In 2000, I was lucky enough to report on one of the most controversial US elections of all time as George W. Bush edged Al Gore in a bitterly fought, legally fraught contest.

I ploughed through the snow in New Hampshire as the primary season kicked off, travelled to LA for the Democratic Party convention, decamped to Nashville on the night Al Gore first won — and then lost — and finally, popped down to Florida as lawyers from both sides went to war over the result.

Not for a second did the excited Democrats gathered in the Staples Arena in LA during a hot August week all those years ago think that Al Gore could possibly lose to a ‘village idiot’ like George W. But lose he did and the rest is history.

President Bill Clinton, with Hillary at his side, said a final goodbye at the 2000 DNC, or so we thought.

Being a foreign journalist at the event was a plum gig and pretty straightforward, especially as I worked for a Sunday publication. The aim was to get there, observe, soak it up, hang out with other reporters, eat well, have a few beers and write a long piece for Sunday’s paper.

Was I filing for online, tweeting or live-blogging? Er, no.

Pictures? I took them on a Boots disposal camera.

In 2000, there was no Twitter, no Instagram, no Snapchat, no Facebook and no smartphones. Journalists had to use shorthand, take notes – listen and watch. Most newspaper websites on ‘The Internet’ were still run by two guys in a basement.

Nobody paid attention to digital. Print was king.

Journalists also still relied on copytakers to file content to our newspapers back home if our brick-heavy laptops broke down. I had a brick-heavy Toshiba, a Nokia mobile phone and was staying a cheap hotel in downtown LA. I didn’t care less – I was in hack heaven.

It may have been a year before 9/11 but security 24 years ago was still pretty tight; airport scanners, full-body pat-downs and several accreditations required before gaining entry to the DNC.

Terrorism? The biggest threat that week was the rock band Rage Against the Machine, who had decided to hold a free concert outside the DNC.

Rolling Stone magazine recalled the event: “Eight-thousand people showed up and Rage frontman Zack de la Rocha whipped them into a frenzy when he walked onstage.

“Our democracy has been hijacked!” he screamed as the band kicked into “Bulls on Parade.” “Our electoral freedoms in this country are over so long as it’s controlled by corporations! We are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by the Democrats or the Republicans!”

“They played a forty-minute set that included “Sleep Now in the Fire,” “Guerrilla Radio,” “Testify” and covers of Devo’s “Beautiful World” and MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams.” A mini riot broke out after the set and LAPD responded by firing pepper spray and rubber bullets, but compared to the nightmare of the 1968 DNC the event was relatively calm.”

My own highlights of DNC 2000? Being featured in the Media Section of the LA Times – the unwitting subject of a DNC week piece which mocked my then employer – The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday- for a fascination with a sheep called Dolly. Turns out the LA Times reporter was the complete thicko, she had never heard of the Roslin Institute or DNA. And she spelled my name wrong.

Other highlights included speeches by Senator Edward Kennedy and the company of other journalists such as The Guardian’s Peter Preston, Joe Carroll of the Irish Times and Stephen Khan, now editor of The Conversation in the UK.

There was also this from Al Gore on stage with his wife Tipper, again expertly described by Rolling Stone magazine:

“A few days later, Al Gore nearly swallowed Tipper’s head in a horrifyingly intense open-mouth kiss before accepting his party’s nomination. He was trying to demonstrate that, unlike Bill Clinton, he had a great relationship with his wife.”

Bill Clinton’s farewell was the centrepiece: the president bounded up to the stage from under the auditorium, much like a prize-fighter about to slug it out for his final purse.

He did what Clinton did; he told stories, electrified the crowd and left people with a sense that the noughties would be a decade full of hope and bright promise – ‘to build the future of our dreams’.

Poignantly, after his eight years in office, he said America had a great opportunity as it had ‘no great internal crisis and no great external threat’. How wrong he would be.

Less than three months later, America chose George W. Bush and changed the course of history.

Since then, 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan have been followed into the history books by Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas and an America that is more deeply polarised than ever.

It’s a different world in every sense – more unstable and more divided – and America is once again at a crossroads. 24  years after that momentous DNC in LA, we will soon know who comes next.

*A version of this article was first published in 2016.