Friday, August 31, 2012

GOP Convention Part 2, The Lost Hours...

"Did you all watch the Republican convention last night? It's good to see scripted television finally making a comeback." – Jay Leno

"Hurricane Isaac turned out to be not much of a threat to the Republican convention. But to their credit, the Republicans had a contingency plan. If the hurricane did hit hard, delegates were instructed to evacuate to Mitt Romney's tax shelter." – Jay Leno
"The White House is now brewing its own beer. Republicans say the White House beer is actually pretty good. Just don't drink the Kool-Aid." – Jay Leno

It was left to the very end, for Mitt Romney to show that he was a caring family man who built a successful business; that he was a man of ideas who could solve our economic crisis and find jobs for millions of Americans. He did well on the first part, matching the tone of the brief speeches beforehand telling us what a generous and compassionate guy he is. He wisely never mentioned that his great grandparents and great-great grandparents were federal fugitives, chased out of the US and moving to Mexico where they could preach and practice polygamy. One grandfather had twelve wives... That's why his dad was born in Mexico, and it would be interesting to see Mitt's birth certificate to see if he has more than one mother listed...

I also was hit with the impression that Mitt Romney's smile reminds me of the cartoon smiles I've seen on a shark or in a Batman comic book. The basic problem with the rest of his speech is that it lacked content. It was satisfying on an emotional level, interesting where it was designed to appeal to voters of both parties who have become disillusioned with Obama's performance. But not once did he veer from bland platitudes and give any real policies or plans to steer our economy and create new jobs, nor does his web site list anything, either. He promised 12 million new jobs, but one independent study had predicted that those 12 million jobs would be created naturally over the next few years. In other words, even if Romney or Obama did nothing, the natural recovery rate would create that many jobs, still short of the 23 million needed...

Speaking of cons, what was up with Clint Eastwood? On the positive side, he showed that California Republicans aren't like the ones in the rest of the nation. On the flip side, he demonstrated that he can't carry a conversation unless he has a script in his hand, nor does he have much of a sense of humor. There was an empty chair next him at the podium, where he pretended an invisible Barack Obama was sitting, and he had imaginary conversations where Barack told him and Mitt to go fuck themselves. Ha Ha... Then, Mario Rubio had to introduce Mitt Romney... But, the crowd reveled in the bad taste, shouting out slogans like "Make my day!" along with a rambling and addled Mr Eastwood.

Was this convention a success? It hit some good spots and resonated with the crowd at times, so they didn't leave depleted and cynical. I doubt that it changed anybody's mind, except to note what a sleazy liar Paul Ryan turned out to be. But hey, at least he's not a Sarah Palin... Despite speeches from women and people of color, it was still designed to reinforce old white men and their antiquated set of values. It the Republican Party is to ever rebuild, we are going to have to wait until the old white guys die off and leave their money to their kids, which, unfortunately, will be years down the road.

After all of the speeches, I flipped around the channels to see what the commentaries were. I was surprised that the most generous analysis was given by MSNBC, while CNN and Fox were not as nice. Rachel Maddow comes across as the smartest woman on television and is worth listening to, no matter how liberal or conservative you are.




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