I wish you could come with me when I cover big political events, like the  Mitt Romney and John McCain rally at the Scottsdale Princess Resort.  If you had come with me today, here’s what we would have seen together.

1. A good many journalists sitting at long tables in the back of a big room. They’re mostly men. They’re  pecking away at laptops and checking their emails. They’re eating  hard candy from little candy dishes.

2. About a dozen wait staff carrying setting places on about two dozen round tables with tablecloths.

3. On a riser, a bunch of TV folks setting up cameras. They’re testing their sound connections to a podium where Romney and McCain will soon pretend to be mutual fans in order to unite the GOP. (I can’t imagine they really are mutual fans, after the two fought so bitterly for  the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. But maybe they worked out some sort of deal, a la Game Change.)

4. Several Secret Service guys with those earpieces you see in movies.

5. Concierge-type hotel staff  in blazers  who look most accommodating.

6. Here come the GOP state chairmen, exhausted from all the convention-attending in the last two days. They are all, as far as I can tell, white. Next, McCain and Romney come in. McCain looks like a retiree. Romney looks like a president.

7. They sit down. They eat salad. They eat chicken. They eat apple  pie.

8. McCain speaks.  He extols Romney. He trashes Obama.

9. Romney speaks. He extols McCain. He trashes Obama.

10. Everyone leaves the room except for a couple of journalists.

11. A lot of the women head to the bathroom.

12. In the bathroom, a middle-aged Mexican maid wipes the sinks.