While the GOP was convening...

TAMPA - A woman in a G-string, bra and knee-high furry boots stood on the sidewalk outside of her strip club as cigar-chomping blue-blazered Republicans, paramilitary-like police officers in tan jumpsuits and black-clad heroin-chic hipsters passed by.

This was the Republican convention you didn't see on TV last week.

The red-white-and-blue party inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum might have looked like a fun Republican festival. But much of the action was outside, where a security apparatus of Green Zone-like proportions and a series of parties with open bars (and free cigarettes in little glass cups) made for a fascinating scene in a city that newcomers knew mostly as the strip-club capital of the country.

Immediately outside the convention location sat the CNN Grill, a free-standing bar that the network created out of whole cloth for the four-day convention as a headquarters for its newsroom and a shmooze-to-be-seen location for VIPs from media and politics.

Quotes from notable Americans were painted on its glass exterior, and in a nod to the plugged-in crowd cruising through, there were outlets next to every bar stool. Again: This was a bar created for four days.

Correspondents from The Daily Show, ties loosened, unwound around one table as Piers Morgan interviewed a Romney campaign aide at another. Oh, and over there? That's actor Jon Voight.

Not to be outdone, Google set up a glorified Starbucks, as one convention-goer called it, with a "concierge" for charging phones, massage chairs, dozens of screens and funky furniture. The free iced coffees got a lot of buzz.

Things were considerably less comfortable outside in the Florida humidity, where helicopters hummed overhead as police officers dressed looked like they were going to war, complete with camouflage-colored Camelbacks for water, huge batons, protective eyewear and guns strapped to their thighs.

The cops ran sorties through the streets 24/7, deployed on bikes, horseback, golf carts and Segways.

One night, after midnight, a group affiliated with the Occupy movement marched down East Seventh Avenue, nearly two miles from the convention hall, carrying a golden elephant. The protesters were easily outnumbered by the jumpsuited-officers, many times over.

Closer to the convention the security was mind-boggling, with so many fences and concrete barriers that a two-block walk from a parking garage required eight blocks. Included on the Secret Service's list of items banned from being brought into the arena were umbrellas and food.

But the biggest challenge was getting into the parties. Lobbyists and politicians got tickets to several events each night, courtesy of corporate sponsors.

Greg Allman, Journey and Kid Rock played sets for invitation-only parties, while each night, at a secret location, a Warehouse Party was staged. This happens every four years at the conventions, apparently, in unmarked buildings. The sponsors Wednesday night included Aflac, Airlines for America, America's Energy 2012, America's Health Insurance Plans, American Resort Development Association - and that's not even all the As.

Google sponsored a party at the Tampa Museum of Art where a cable TV news anchor double-fisted a beer and a colorful cocktail just a few hours before delivering insightful analysis on air.

A huge screen played clips from the convention as party-goers relaxed on white Adirondack chairs and ate pimento tartlets.

In Ybor City, a gritty but charming hipster district with bars, restaurants and strip clubs, a smoke shop stayed open well after midnight to accomodate a steady stream of puffing lobbyists in blue blazers. (Really, it's hard to overemphasize how many blue blazers were donned in Tampa last week.)

When a barmaid in Ybor City asked one young Republican in a blue blazer whether he was here for the convention, he joked: "Nah, I'm with Occupy."

Fortunately, the party's not over. Since reporters outnumbered delegates and alternate delegates by a 3:1 ratio, and since lobbyists must ply their trade amongst members of both parties, it was clear that political activists were in the minority at the convention. Most of us were hangers-on. So one refrain was heard over and over again: "See you in Charlotte."

That's where the party starts for the Democratic convention this coming week.

Got tickets?

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Contact Matt Katz at 609-217-8355 or mkatz@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @mattkatz00. Read his blog, "Christie Chronicles," at www.philly.com/christiechronicles.