I thought Romney gave an excellent speech.
It had a good mix of soaring rhetoric without veering into Greek columns territory.
Clearly the speech was intended to help neutralize the “war on women” theme, and I think it was effective. I also was glad that the speech included a frontal assault on Obama’s record, false promises, and pomposity.
While you probably have seen it, here it the obligatory embed (via HotAir):
If there was a “moment” in the speech, it was when Romney told of how on the day of his father’s death his mother realized something was wrong when there was no rose by her bedside, something he had made a habit of leaving.
This screenshot of a woman’s reaction pretty much summed up the reaction I suspect many people of both sexes had:
Making an emotional connection with the electorate was something Mitt Romney has not been good at. Last night he was very good at it, and I suspect it will benefit him in ways which may not show up immediately in the polls.
Marco Rubio’s speech was equally excellent, and seeing that speech it is easy to imagine him having given it as the Veep nominee.
Clint Eastwood? It certainly was different. I just can’t decide if it helped or hurt. Just having him there probably helped at some level with the senior vote in Florida and the pro-America vote everywhere, but I would not be honest if I didn’t say I was very worried as he was speaking as to where he was going with it. Very worried.
It is what people are talking about, and how it is viewed probably reflects pre-existing cultural divides. Old white guy beating up on young black guy seems to be a theme from the left.
Immediately after Romney spoke I switched over to MSNBC. Heads exploding hardly begins to describe the reaction from Chris Matthews. Romney’s mocking Obama’s promise to halt the rise of the oceans really got under their skin (video via NewsBusters):
One of the commentators on the panel (sorry, can’t remember his name, I think he might be with HuffPo) was so incensed that he launched into an explanation of how engineers in NYC were working as he spoke on how to protect the subways from rising oceans. That part of the discussion was comedy gold. [see update below]
All in all, it was a good night. A very good night.
Bonus question: Will you watch Obama’s speech?
Update: The mystery man is Chris Hayes (h/t John Nolte), he not of HuffPo but of The Nation and Up with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, most famous recently for announcing he doesn’t feel comfortable calling killed soldiers “heroes.” I still can’t find a clip of his comments last night about the subways, but if anyone does, please post in comments.
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I will watch Obama’s speech. Of course, I’ve watched it before…many times.
If the HuffPo guy was trying to disprove Romney’s quip about Obama and rising oceans, he missed the irony of his own response.
That NYC engineers are working to prevent rising oceans from getting into the subway system actually verifies that Obama was ineffective in yet another area.
I saw that clip last night. I always flip to MSDNC after republican speeches. That bit about the rising oceans got the guy in question so angry that he resorted to that little factoid which had nothing to do with what Obama said. It was the funniest thing I have seen in a while, he looked like he was going to throw something. He was grasping for anything to disprove what Mitt said and made himself look childish (Although the other panelists were very close in contention).
Actually I didn’t think this was a particular reference to climate change but rather to the silly Messiah hype of Obama while Romney intends to focus on everyday issues that matter to everyday Americans, i.e., the economy and jobs.
Frankly, there is no proof that any body can slow the rise of the oceans. As for healing the planet, placing solar panels all over the Western US is anything but a healing venture.
gree and liberals of course will attempt to make some literal sense out of Obama’s self promoting statement from 2008. Back in 2008 Obama had all those big dreams and ideas but as weve seen were left onlt with a poster. Similar to Boz Scaggs:
Somebody loan me a dime,
Mmm, I need to call my old time, used to be.
Contrast with Romney’s more down to earth promise to help American families.
Thats what voters understand. Great visions are fine but dont get lost on the way to work. The best visions are made by accumulating daily realities.
MSNBC took it to mean climate change as well. I did not see the video that the professor put up. My comment was in reference to what Chris Hayes was saying about New York. I can’t find video of him saying what he did. The video posted by the professor summarizes it all up nicely though.
In any case, whatever the intended meaning, all the right people were irritated with the speech last night. Mitt really knows how to get under their skin.
So how long will Comcast let this farce continue ?
RE: “all the right people were irritated with the speech last night. Mitt really knows how to get under their skin”
TOUCHE!
Chris Matthews has completely come off the rails and has leapfrogged to the head of my “increasingly delusional and deranged pundits” list.
Whatever he has, he needs to be quarantined, as it’s obviously contagious … Howard Fineman has caught it and is now a carrier, too.
What is the term for beyond self-parody?
What’s the term? Modern Democrat?
I would like to ask Chris when he first noticed he was going insane.
Fineman and Matthews don’t seem to understand the difference between science and being pompous.
Hard to know how things are going to play with the target audience — for me, and for the professionals too — but I trusted Clint in his routine. That’s what it was: not a speech but a performance. Obama is ripe for ridicule, and ridicule is effective, but that was clearly something real players at the Convention were not going to do. Correctly, I think, as matter of tactics.
So I saw Clint as playing the old guy who can get away with saying what other people can’t. And I thought he had the single most devastating line of the whole event.
When somebody doesn’t do the job, you have to let him go.
Until I see evidence otherwise, I think he helped the cause.
RE: “When somebody doesn’t do the job, you have to let him go.”
On first hearing I thought he said:
“When you love somebody, you have to let him go!”
lol Heard that Dems? Let him go if you really love him!
http://dunwoody.patch.com/articles/dems-giving-away-tickets-to-obamas-speech-9af17d66?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001
Things are not going as planned I see.
Last night’s convention was the best that I’ve ever seen.
I like Eastwood’s string of one liners and so did the crowd and Romney’s speech surely did the job that most of us deeply desired.
Considering that a planned four day event which was forced to be consolidated into three, the process appeared to be seamless.
Great job and next week I guess I’ll spend it watchin’ movie classics…
To Clint:
Star Bright,
Star with Light
You filled my every wish last night,
For I had wished with all my might,
That what you said, WOULD SET US RIGHT!
I am sorry prof, but Dirty Hairy saved the day. It was the meat we were looking for. A general indictment of Obama. What everyone, the lay person thinks and understands.
I can’t sit through Obama’s speeches, never have, never will. They are so long and dry, and pontificate too much.
Watch Obama’s speech? Let’s see if I can preview it for you:
1) Spike the football over ObamaCare
2) Spike the football over killing Bin Laden
3) Everybody who disagrees with him (especially Romney/Ryan) are damn dirty liars
4) And throw in about a bazillion or so ‘me’s and ‘I’s
Nah, I’ve seen this show already. Not impressed. And I’ve got work to do to keep building my business.
on #3 you forgot racist.
You didn’t build that! *cough cough* /sarcasm
Don’t forget promoting a woman’s right to have an abortion or to be sterilized at taxpayer expense. He will certainly have that in his speech.
From Karl Rove:
What had emerged from that data is an “acute understanding of the nature of those undecided, persuadable” voters. “If you say he’s a socialist, they’ll go to defend him. If you call him a ‘far out left-winger,’ they’ll say, ‘no, no, he’s not.’” The proper strategy, Rove declared, was criticizing Obama without really criticizing him—by reminding voters of what the president said that he was going to do and comparing it to what he’s actually done. “If you keep it focused on the facts and adopt a respectful tone, then they’re gonna agree with you.”
This is what I saw a lot of last night in Mitt Romney’s speech. It tended to make the speech a bit less than bombastic, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
In other words those voters are liked someone who married a complete loser on impulse because he was handsome and seemed a nice guy. Telling them they married a bum won’t get you anywhere because they’ll always be a little bit in love with the idealized image. To get them to contemplate divorce you have to gently prompt the idea they are unhappy and then carefully point out very specific examples of how the marriage has failed to go as planned.
Plato had a distrust of the poets, the music lies. I’m happy the GOP isn’t getting lost in lofty rhetoric – I’d rather have a simple, line by line critique of Obama and why he should be replaced.
That being said, Rubio was on FIRE! Real excited for the GOP with the likes of him and Ryan!
Chris Matthews asks, …how narrow-minded, how small and insular and piggish can you be?
I dunno, Chris. You keep breaking your own records.
Maybe Chris was feeling a trickle going down his leg.
I was thinking the same thing, gs:
I don’t know Chris, you tell me. What’s it like in that wallow?
“IN THIS TIME OF CRISES”–So many, of so many kinds.
When the harsh winds blow and nobody knows,
If the levees will fail or stand.
When the media lies swarm like bluebottle flies,
Ordered by a foul liar’s band.
When the people seek a leader who’s meek,
And prays to the God of our youth,
Let the fearful see OUR BEST NOMINEES:
MITT ROMNEY; PAUL RYAN AND TRUTH
No rights reserved: Copy, send, pray, contribute, prepare, share, VOTE.
I can think of no other explanation for Matthew’s and Fineman’s reaction to Romney’s mocking of Obama’s pomposity than knee-jerk sanctimony lubricated by their manifest stupidity.
Clint’s appearance was a net positive. There were several strong, memorable sound bites in his speech that will be excerpted on radio and television. The uncomfortable pauses and moments where he appeared lost will be forgotten.
On Romney: Jim Geraghty…”Who Are You, and What Did You Do With the Old Mitt?”…I think sums up a lot of people’s take-away from last night.
Could it be we are seeing a reformed Mitt? Only time will tell. But he HAS been making some excellent points lately (i.e., devolving power BACK to the states, choice in education, etc.). AND he chose Ryan, which WAS a true “gutsy call”.
Rubio: Yep. A president in the making.
Eastwood: Had to hold my breath a few times, but VERY effective in the main. You can gauge just HOW effective by the level of hate immediately ginned up by the Collective.
Will I listen to the Obama speech? Yeah, just to see if it is different than the one I could write, given his past speeches. He has a real hill to climb, and he seldom appoints (as opposed to “disappoints”
You are right about the Collective Rags.
Afterwards, on the big networks’ early, early morning shows it was clear that the last-century media is scared sh…sh…sh… ah WIT-LESS.
Their eyes were bopping around like pin balls in their faces, their mouths contorting in nervous fits of hysteria, and honestly they were talking DOUBLE FAST!
I think the DNC really as a Augean Stables kind of task in front of it.
Literally, not metaphorically. I don’t see them pulling off a convention that counters this one.
I could be wrong, because they DO have a talent for moving BS.
LOL How appropriate (and I learned something new this century!)
The fifth Labour of Heracles
The fifth Labour of Heracles (Hercules in Latin) was to clean the Augean stables (pronunciation: /ɔːˈdʒiːən/). This assignment was intended to be both humiliating (rather than impressive, as had the previous labours) and impossible, since the livestock were divinely healthy (immortal) and therefore produced an enormous quantity of dung. These stables had not been cleaned in over 30 years, and over 1,000 cattle lived there. However, Heracles succeeded by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the filth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augeas
Watch the DNC? No thanks, I’m tired of reruns and can’t tolerate the sight or sound of Whatshisname.
I’m a political junkie, but I have absolutely no interest in watching Obama’s speech.
He has made the mistake of becoming horribly overexposed as he’s become increasingly boring and trite. Who wants to sit through an hour of that?
LukeHandCool (who would really like to watch Mr. President, but Luke has to wash his hair that night).
Clint hasmade a career on saying what he wants so that’s what you have to expect from him and he delivered. Great point above about Clint’s appearance being a performance not a spech. Everytime he seemed to be about to lose his train of thought, he pulled out a great zinger. Seniors are a big demographic and I saw a comparison of Clint’s to Jimmy Stewart. Who doesn’t love Jimmy Stewart? The f— yourself humor was inappropriate but people like a little irreverenc and it added levity to such a highly scripted event, I think that will go over well. I thought the central message was effective: we own this country, oliticiansare our employees and if they don’t do the job you have to fire them. Swing voters aren’t sophisticated, they go with simple mesages and Clint got it across well.
I like the tone of Romney’s speech, we are in serious trouleand we need a serious person to address the problems–look where lofty rhetoric has gotten us. Plus, Mitt is naturally a little stiff, but he’s sincere and that came across. The left was so upset about the rising oceans because Mitt effectively portrayed the difference betwen an ineffectual Obama and his promises with what Mitt is offering– real solutions to the problems facing most Americans.
Rubio set himself up to bee the next major Republican presidential nominee with that speech.
The most ridiculous MSNBC “analysis” I saw came when Chris matthews said the video on Romney was a “failure.” Only the mot jaded artisan hack could say that about home movies of Mitt with his kids– the part where his sn turned th hose on the video camera was priceless.
I will watch Obama’s swan song.
I will not watch to hear more lame talking points, or pie in the sky promises, or anything spoken, really.
No, I will watch the manchild’s demeanor, betting he will not be able to control his anger at the fact that he is not sufficiently appreciated for a man of his caliber–and, by caliber I mean that which no mortal man can approach.
Yes, I look forward to the utter disdain he will display at the very thought of someone seriously challenging his right to His Throne.
I don’t think you should worry so much about what Clint Eastwood did last night at the convention, Professor. Eastwood’s presentation was a stroke of masterpiece.
This piece at The American Thinker explains it much better than I ever could.
Here’s a bite:
“Simply put, Eastwood’s job was to make it OK to laugh at President Obama, and to vote against him without worrying that one might be a racist for firing the first black president. There were two principal themes:
1. President Obama has failed the nation.
2. He presents an image as a nice guy, but maybe he isn’t really so nice.
The key to delivering these messages is to somehow escape being labeled as “mean” or “racist.””
You’ve got to read it all! The best part about it: someone we all know DID WATCH IT!
Best line of Eastwood’s speech, of all the darned wonderful lines he said last night: an all American, no-nonsense, “When somebody does not do the job, we gotta let ’em go.”
Clint Eastwood’s speech is going to resonate across this whole nation, just as “Go ahead: make my day!” and “Get off my lawn!” did. Trust me on this one.
Absolutely agree! When the libbies start bashing Clint, the populace will rise up! It will send them to look for the video and Clint’s message will go out again! Brilliant!
RE: The Commie vs. Someone else
I’m voting for Someone else. Don’t need the speeches.
RE: Eastwood
Loved it, only thing I watched start to finish. To all those pondering the benefit or not; be happy he didn’t do Philo listening to Ma,” God damn ape eating all my oreos,….crapping all over the place”.
Does it get any more narcissistic than this? And the Obama’s claimed they didn’t watch the RNC conventions! Yeah, right! Will I watch the DNC? Oh, heck, yes! Wouldn’t miss that for all the world! The thought of watching Michelle opining with her facial expressions from the peanut gallery sends chills up my spine!
http://twitchy.com/2012/08/31/stompy-foot-in-chief-barack-obama-is-telling-you-hes-not-going/
WOW JoAnne! Thanks for the link. Great site with some great nuggets.
Loved this one!
“Did anybody get Mitt’s remarks during his ode to Neil Armstrong….
“If you want to get the really big things done,
it takes an AMERICAN.” – keithsmustache
OMGoodness this Presidential Tweet is for real – I checked it out on their web site! Source Twitchy above.
“Stompy foot in chief: Barack Obama is telling you he’s not going
Posted at 12:47 am on August 31, 2012 by Twitchy Staff |
Barack Obama✔
@BarackObama
This seat’s taken. OFA.BO/c2gbfi, t.co/jgGZTb02”
In Response to CLINT talking to the empty suit in the …er talking to the empty chair!
FOX NEWS IS LIVING RENT FREE IN OBAMA’S HEAD! lol
http://twitchy.com/2012/08/31/stompy-foot-in-chief-barack-obama-is-telling-you-hes-not-going/
source citation for above
Clint nailed it. Too many apolitical folks have described Obama as a nice guy. Clint ‘unpolished’ skit should nudge this segment toward describing Obama as a empty suit.
No, I will not watch Obama’s speech. I will read about it but I honestly cannot bear to listen to the man. He makes me want to imitate Elvis and shoot the TV.
Obama: yes, I will watch, and will watch Biden also. I think the compare and contrast (Ryan/Biden, Romney/Obama) will be instructive.
Eastwood: the man is 82 years old. He can say what he wants, even if it looked as if he had just a touch of senile dementia a couple times. What can you do to him? But I think the reason why he was there was just to get eyeballs to the TVs so that Rubio and then Romney could speak to more Americans. If that was the strategy it certainly worked.
Romney: yes! That was the man I voted for in the primaries. I think his tone, that he was saddened more than anything by Obama’s multiple failures, is the right tone to connect with the relatively small (1 million at most?) number of voters that will decide this election. He doesn’t hate Obama and he’s happy to agree that Obama is a decent human being, he just thinks that it’s time to fire Obama. That will work. I love the red meat as much as any political junkie but last night wasn’t the time for it. What he and Rubio did will work, and that what the American people tuned into the networks saw. Good job.
RNC: don’t upset the grassroots with your behind the scenes rule making, boys, or come 2014 we’ll wax a few more incumbents in the primaries. We’re getting good at that.
I think your take is spot on.
It was a foregone conclusion that MSNBC heads would explode. It was only a matter of which detonator they would choose. Romney’s point on Obama’s disconnection from reality flew right over their heads (perhaps by their choice) before making its way under their skin. And they’re the masters of nuance?
I thought Clint Eastwood’s piece was, beyond the stories of the rose and the teenager dying of cancer, the most effective speech of the entire evening. We conservatives are understandably concerned we are preaching to the choir, online, on Twitter, on our computers, in our like minded friends’ ears. Eastwood spoke not to US but to those who are outside the “church door” if you will. He spoke to the duped masses who wanted to believe that a “Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review” represented the finest America had to offer, and that voting for him was in essence a consecration of the “American Dream.” What Eastwood said was that the American Dream is not a Naked Emperor who promises a good show of imaginary finery spun from the richest of materials but rather 23 million ordinary Americans being able to find and work a job. Eastwood’s speech was no demented Hollywood insider’s “vague” or “rambling” monologue. It was literally an indictment of Barack Obama and a plea to America the Jury to hand down its verdict this November, and in the process, to reject the Defense Lawyer’s phony script.
“Will you watch Obama’s speech”?
I typically watch the first two minutes of his speeches with my fingers and toes crossed that he will announce his resignation.
This time I won’t waste those two minutes of my life. Instead, I’ll do something productive like watch 40 year old re-runs of “I Love Lucy”.
Although my son is a Republican, he’s pretty much apolitical. So I was surprised when he called today to tell me how much he liked Romney’s speech. As he speaks fluent Spanish, he thought Romney’s son did a great job even though it was just for a few minutes.
One of the best speeches last night was from Jane Edmonds, a former cabinet member of Mitt Romney’s in Massachusetts. Of course you could only know about it if you watched C-Span. She was charming, a self professed liberal Dem, but she has nothing but high prose for Romney. I was very impressed by her.
Heads exploding hardly begins to describe the reaction from Chris Matthews.
Famous quote from Chris Matthews: “I’ll have what Joe Biden is having.”
[…] stuff. I guess. Or maybe not. The Prof says: It certainly was different. I just can’t decide if it helped or hurt. Just having him there […]
Here is the deal:
(1) Clint Eastwood. Wow, did I forget to say CLINT EASTWOOD!!!
(2) Clint Eastwood is a Republican!
(3) Clint Eastwood dumped a truck load on Obama (empty chair == empty suit).
(4) Clint Eastwood likes Romney.
Everything else is just the nattering of nabobs.
PolitiFactCheck rates Professor Jacobson’s claim that The Nation’s Chris Hayes is really with the Huffington Post:
Racist Pants on Fire, 25 Pinnochios, and 3,000 Dog Whistles.
…”and a Hate Crime in a pear tree…..”
la,la,la
I want Politifact to explain why they selected a white fictional character to symbolize lying.
He won by a nose
God help me, I laughed at that. But then I groaned.
If you check the records at Ellis Island, you’ll find Geppetto was changed to Jacobson.
He’s an evil, right-wing puppeteer whose string-attached words control an army of conservative nutjob puppets.
Fact checked.
Gepetto is Jacobson? An evil, right-wing puppeteer, you say? Well, this changes everything, doesn’t it? Let’s we just track this fellow Jacobson, Gepetto, whatever name he’s using, and see what emerges, eh?
Nice catch, Luke. Thanks for the heads up.
That’s right, Our ‘Enry.
And when you find yourself spontaneously singing, “I got no strings to hold me doooooooooown …”
you know that somewhere, some evil puppeteer (you know who) is blowing on his whistle.
“I ken yer meanin’, a whistle only ‘Enry can ‘ear. ‘Enry’s on it, like ‘ot on ‘alapeno, like ‘eavy on a ‘og, there’s your ‘umble ‘Enry, on th’ job, m’lord!”
Thanks yet again, Luke. It’s comforting, if just a wee bit creepy, to know you’ve always got my six.
Good Professor, please DO NOT worry about Clint.
Clint was spot on – his performance planned, practiced, and polished – delivered in the cadence of one of his famous movie characters from say “Dirty Harry” “Gran Torino” or “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.”
The audience knew exactly what he meant in his references “A man can’t do that to himself”… Mr. President… Only the audience had to be rather quiet because Mr. Eastwood wasn’t screaching at the top of his lungs as the DNC will next week.
Afterwards, on a couple of big networks’ early, early morning shows it was clear that the last-century media is scared sh…sh…sh… ah WIT-LESS.
Their eyes were bopping around like pin balls in their faces, their mouths contorting in nervous fits of hysteria, and honestly they were talking DOUBLE FAST.
They were doing everything they could to diss every thing USA RNC. However their days of control are long gone (2010). There are too many info sources for all Americans to be able to see through the old-century media cracks.
“the old-century media cracks”
Are you sure you don’t mean media crocks? ;-p
That too Barbara! lol
Excellent speech by Romney. Struck just the right tone.
Along with Condi Rice’s personal tale of success after growing up in the Jim Crow South, I though Marco Rubio was fantastic.
His words about his father standing at the back of a bar for years on end so Marco and his siblings could make it was so powerful.
I’ll readily admit I’ve been a failure in life. But just because I’m a loser doesn’t mean my children will be. I’ll keep working until I die to help make sure they succeed.
That’s America and that’s what keeps me going.
LukeHandCool (who, when his vacation is over, will start looking for a second job … woe is he).
Will I watch Bambi’s speech (or anything else about the Dem convention)?
No.
I have something much more productive to do that night (whichever night it is): I’ll be watching oil paint dry.
Here’s the part I wasn’t thrilled about at all…Romney’s entrance. His walk through the hall on the way to the podium reminded me of Jay Leno needing to come on stage and shake everybody’s hand. The bizarre thing was, at least on Fox, as Romney approached the dais someone yelled “don’t touch me”. Very strange.
Later, however, my dh said that he thought that Romney’s entrance reminded him of the President’s entrance into the House chamber for a speech.
I can’t be all that enthused. Romney sounds like “well, we haven’t had a very good ‘king’, but elect me and I’ll be a good one.”
Excuse me. We fought the Revolutionary War over this business of a monarch dictating to us. So, how’s Romney going to be any different.
Part of this country’s difficulty has been the rise of the imperial presidency. We can’t exist very well with ever-changing goals and objectives every time there’s a new adminstration. Just look what the last several years have been with one man having “rule” over the country and our lives.
Some semblance of order and balance is needed between the three branches of the federal government. How this can be achieved I don’t know. However, I do believe it is sorely needed.
For those of you who are enthused about Team Romney, I hope that it turns out to be justified.
Tell ya, I’ve read and reread your post. You sound schizophrenic. Cut to the chase, Nov. 6 = Obama or Romney. If you can’t see a difference in where each wants to take this country, sorry I can’t help you.
Will you watch Obama’s speech?
Er, no.
I can’t stand the sound of his voice.
And even if I could, just what is he going to say that he hasn’t said a hundred times already?
Great speech from Romney on the whole. A few worries, quite possibly only to me. Nit-picky, but Romney’s facial expressions seemed a bit odd at times, the way he cut his eyes left or right. It means nothing, but it distracted me early on. Timing. Romney struggles at times hitting the timing right on those standard closing words on a topic, where the speaker gets louder and more energetic with each phrase or line, working up crowd frenzy, building to a crescendo and carefully written and artfully screamed final punchline phrase. It’s a common rhetorical device and powerful when done seamlessly – which takes near-perfect timing. Romney’s getting there fast, though. Most of the time he pulled it off very well. It takes Romney a little too long yet to settle into a speech, to catch his rhythym, so to speak. I’d say 90% of the criticism of Romney’s speaking skills centers on the perception he’s too unnatural and awkward, but those are often caused by poor timing on a prepared speech.
I think he successfully humanized himself, filled out the most reductive image of him, that of being a corporate technocrat who, if he has blood at all, it runs icy cold. More accurately, I think he successfully socialized himself (referencing society, not socialism) by sharing all the other things he is: son, husband, father, grandfather, charity server, etc. He took that thin corporate businessman image and expanded it, fleshed it out, revealed where he fits in society, and which experiences, loves, concerns, troubles, and blessings he shares with regular folks. He undemonized (angelized?) his business career and his great wealth. Who can say a millionaire loves his children less than we love our own? Or that the sibling/parent growing-up dynamic is at its core any different in a millionaire’s home than in ours? I think he did a great job personalizing himself, like the presumed snooty banker at a block party, charming these neighbors he’s been too busy to meet with his essential nice-and-normalness.
On the main issues he did a very good job, it’s tough to keep fresh these basic policies when you’ve been repeating them for month and months already, but he punched ’em out. As well, he got his shots in on Obama.
All in all, a very strong speech that more than satisfactorily accomplished what it was meant to.
As a result of this convention I am increasingly impressed with the Romney/Ryan team, with the GOP ‘bench’ talent, and what seems to me to be a general shift in the GOP as a whole: towards youth and to the right. Old guard RINOs must see the diminishment of their influence over the next few cycles (imagine their horror to witness Young Turk conservative policies actually working).
Some say the Tea Party was all but missing from the whole convention. Oh, really? Did you hear anyone talk about cutting taxes, reducing government, cutting spending, and reforming entitlement programs? Then you heard the Tea Party loud and clear. The Tea Party is not a group of people; it is a set of ideas, many already long held by the GOP. The ideas weigh on the necks of poll-chasing RINOs and GOP go-alongers to get-alongers. The weight pulls them to the right, the pressure is increasing, and it comes from the Tea Party ideas. The Tea Party was all over this convention.
Romney won the primaries, named Ryan his VP candidate, and pulled off a great convention. The Romney/Ryan team has seized the formerly untouchable third rail of Medicare reform and made it their own, inviting the Obama team to bring on whatever argument they want, Romney and Ryan are happy to oblige. Wow. Big risks have big payoffs and I think this was a master stroke by the Romney/Ryan team. This moment, where the people are eager to reform entitlements, has been seized at the earliest possible moment and I think it will pay off big time. A primary line of Democrat attack, successfully executed for the past 50 years, has now been neutralized. Short on fudn-raising, devoid of a record to run on, unable to demonize Romney or Ryan personally, unable to scandalize either of these Boy Scouts Romney and Ryan, unable to even mention the economy, Obama has lost one of his last remaining venues for attack – Mediscare. He has nothing left but a negative media blitz and vague warnings about (fill in your demon here).
As a result of this GOP convention, and after a year of predicting Obama 52% / Romney 48%, I’m upgrading my numbers to Romney 51% / Obama 49%.
PS: “..and what seems to me to be a general shift in the GOP as a whole: towards youth and to the right.”
I meant to add that this is another excellent reason to support College Insurection as much as we possibly can, to ‘catch’ this growing number of young conservatives. Donations are always welcome, I’m sure, but there are other ways to help. For example, I’m making sure I’m getting the link to every young person I can, especially those in college, plus when I post at other blogs, I include the link in my posts.
[…] think Mitt Romney’s speech last night was much better than what he is being given credit for. But it does not matter. This election is about what kind […]
I can’t believe that you, Prof, were concerned during Clint’s address. It was masterful. My wife and I had great laughs all the way through.
Prof,,,Mr. Eastwood was fantastic. No worries.
[quote]Will you watch Obama’s speech?[/quote]
I’m torn on this one. I’ve avoided watching Obama speeches for the past year and a half (excluding the last SOTU, which left me enraged and practically screaming at the television). But I do feel that this, like the SOTU, may warrant a watch.
He’s become such a clown, though, that I half expect him to descend from a bungee cord amid a flock of dancing vaginas. He’s so predictable, anyway, given how he gives the same speech repeatedly (me, me, me, I, I, I, blah blah “not one dime,” I, I, I, [insert any number of lies about MediCare and ObamaCareTax] me, me, me, Oh, and did I mention that I personally took out bin Laden, I, me, I, Bush did it. All of it, unless you like it, then I did it. Me, me, me, fair share, I, I, me, me, Mmm mmm mmm)
Newer items: He’ll hail the mighty vagina and explain again why “women’s health” (i.e. only those things related to reproductive organs) is important to “women’s rights” (i.e. those provided by government, witness the witless, hapless, and helpless #Julia )
He’ll pander to Jews and make lots more promises he never intends to keep about Israel.
He’ll pander to illegal immigrants, perhaps promising the people of the world automatic citizenship, whether or not they ever set foot on America’s shores.
He’ll claim that he does think you built that. So there. Then he’ll ramble about small business, talking in circles, making no sense, and being instantly rebuked for lying on Twitter (likely by me).
. . .
Then again, given the commie cred of some of the speakers, maybe he’s going to actually come out and say that he actually does believe that it’s better to spread the wealth around, that you didn’t build that, that you’ve earned enough money, and that your rights come from government not God. Naw, he’s not that honest. Or that “gutsy.”
Jackie Defends Clint Eastwood’s RNC Speach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzUnDfZAnG4
agrh…..Jackie Mason the comedian that is.