politics

Will John McCain's vice-presidential selection add a few critical electoral votes? How will the GOP's energy policy play in Ohio and Florida?

This, folks, is what high political drama looks like at a convention in a country whose democracy has endured for 232 years.

But what if you live in a nation whose democratic government is just struggling out from under totalitarian rule? What if you came of age in a country that was splintering, with bloody warfare and ethnic cleansing just down the road?

What if your infant democracy -- less than two decades old -- is still standing on thin ice?

There are a number of people who know what that's like at the Republican National Convention. One is Nikola Gruevski, the 38-year-old prime minister of Macedonia. In 1991, his country -- long part of Yugoslavia -- won its independence when that country disintegrated.

Yugoslavia's civil war produced the nightmares of Serbia and Kosovo. Macedonia emerged from the process intact, but faced daunting challenges. They included a history of Communist oppression, a flood of refugees, pervasive corruption, and an epidemic of poverty and unemployment.

At age 26, Gruevski had joined a center-right party, the VMRO-DPMNE, and threw himself into the process of building a new nation. He was inspired by a generation of anti-Communist dissidents, as well as "the 1,000-year-old dream of Macedonians to have a nation of their own," he said.

Gruevski and other party members are in the Twin Cities as part of a delegation sponsored by the International Democratic Union. The IDU was founded in 1983 by Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to promote their vision of individual freedom, free markets and political democracy. The IDU delegation includes 142 representatives of center-right parties from 38 countries.

Gruevski's visit to the RNC is not his first contact with Minnesota. In 2005, two Minnesotans -- Eric Hoplin, then national chair of the College Republicans, and Chris Tiedeman, a former Minnesota CR chair -- traveled to Macedonia to help the VMRO-DPMNE prepare for upcoming elections. They taught the nuts and bolts of campaigning, from how to make a flier and organize a news conference to how to raise funds and get out the vote.

Gruevski and his party have learned the lessons of democracy building well. After he became prime minister in 2006, Gruevski worked to open his nation's economy and end corruption. His party won re-election by a landslide in 2008, and he now has the highest approval rating of any European leader.

At the RNC, Gruevski has enjoyed the seminars with GOP strategists. He's also relished his encounters with ordinary Minnesotans -- like the earful he got from his cab-driver, a fervent Obama supporter. Gruevski is also wide-eyed at the weirder aspects of convention garb, such as the hockey jerseys that the Michigan delegation sported the night Sarah Palin was nominated.

Years ago, Gruevski's grandmother warned him never to get involved in politics, because he would be thrown into prison. He says the most extraordinary thing at the RNC is the chance "to observe at work the democracy that Americans take for granted."