Conventional Thoughts

[_MeDotOrg]

It looks like we're going to go through an entire Convention listening about Mitt Romney's business experience without once hearing the words "Bain Capital".

In general.I think the Republicans did okay. Huckabee was Huckabee, sort of the Chick-fil-a speaker for religious conservatives. Nothing much lost or gained on his speech. You don't want to freak people out with Bachmann or Santorum. He's the most palatable of the religious conservatives for prime time, but it's beginning to look like he's been following Governor Christie in the buffet line.

I thought Condi Rice had a good speech, and mentioned things that aren't mentioned very much by either party. She actually made a speech that didn't seem like it had been vetted to death. She has this tremulous, unsure quality to her voice, like a 9th grader making a speech in class. Maybe in't because she doesn't exude personal ambition that I listen to her for her ideas.

Susanna Martinez gave a speech remarkably free of pit bulls and lipstick. Hers was the best speech for reaching out to women. She is to Mexican-Americans what Condolezza Rice is to African-Americans: a place where white Republicans feel safe. (Republicans like the heat turned up high on their melting pot.) But the meat of her 'conversion' to the Republican party was lacking in particulars.

Ryan: started slow but quickly found his rhythm and delivered a speech that enthralled the audience. To say that he played fast and loose with the facts would be charitable. He pretty much blamed Obama for a G.M. plant closing in his home town that happened during the Bush presidency. Perhaps he was too busy reading Ayn Rand to notice when the plant closed. He positioned himself and Mitt as the guys who will save Medicare. I think I would like a definition of 'save' before he gets my vote. He blamed Obama for doing nothing when Ryan was the one who torpedoed the Simpson-Bowles budget compromise.

And I am sick of the repetition of 'you didn't build that'. It's cheap shot character assassination. And it has nothing to do with the point Obama was trying to make.

From Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan, conservative Republicans screamed about the dangers of creeping socialism and Medicare. Now the same people who warned us of the dangers of this program are suddenly its guardians? You'll come for the laughs, but you'll stay for the hipocricy.

One thing is certain: this is going to be an ugly election.

The Republican Convention Drinking Game: You take a drink each time the camera finds someone in the audience who ISN'T white.

[_EAllusion]

The Janesville GM plant, as opposed to other ones in the country, closed down because it was an SUV plant at a time when the SUV market was getting crushed. It was on the ropes before the economic collapse, then its closing date was pushed up after it happened. If you live anywhere near the area, this is common knowledge.

[_EAllusion]

Politicians mislead and make empty promises all the time, but the Romney camp is taking it to a level that obliterates anything I have living memory of. At least slick Willy had to be, you know, slick. I'd like to know what that represents as far as where modern politics is going, but I can't help but think this is just an inevitable consequence how perverted media coverage has become. When the wheels of coverage are just tools of spin alley, what consequence is there even in blatant, easily refuted lying? And the media is the way it is because the old business model collapsed under diversification of information sources. I hope this gets better, because I don't like where it is going.