Republican Convention
 

Scaled back happenings on Monday. Laura's speech canceled and W watching the weather channel from Texas.
Tuesday, Cheney is leaving the country for 4 days.

Ya think the Almighty is tryin to tell the Repubs something?

Let's hope they keep up that level of enthusiasm for the entire campaign. ;) I got visited by an African American lady who is canvassing for Obama. She was so excited, she was almost turning cartwheels. :eek:

Well someone up there likes them. They now have a legitimate excuse for excluding GWB from the convention.

This is much better than the alien invasion they were getting ready to stage.:alien2::vader1::biggrinba:borg:

Pat Robertson prayed for rain, so that Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Stadium would be rained out. Seems like He showed mercy instead by watering down the RNC 08 par-tay!

If anything, I think it's becoming clearer this year how unnecessary a spectacle involving a lot of people in funny hats and vests covered in more flair than a Chotchkie's waitress. The candidate is already determined, the platform planks long since decided upon and nailed in by the Inner Party and all the conventions do at this point is mess up the TV schedule and reinforce the notion that white people can't dance.

Romney: 3 out of 10. Pretty boy speak nice, but his repeated emphasis of Librul vs Conservative was divisive red meat for his own side, not making the case to America. In his time slot maybe that's to be expected, but fuck him.

Huckabee: 8 out of 10. Passionate populism, but not overly passionate. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but it's okay; and Huck has this likability characteristic that I can't escape. He comes across as a decent guy gently making the case for his side. The uncle or cousin you liked to listen to at family gatherings.

Yawn. Let me know when Sarah blinks her headlights at the conclusion of her speech. *That's* something I'll be sorry I missed.

OK -- I went up to watch just now but got bored. It's not that I don't care; I just find the whole situation so damn depressing. I don't like Obama, so if I vote for McCain, it will be because he's not Obama. And so nothing else matters. I don't like McCain either, so my vote will be about who I dislike less. Blech..

Vote for someone else and it's like not bothering to vote at all. I made that mistake way back in 1992, so this time I might just stay home so I don't have to admit to something embarrassing like voting for Perot.

Which, let me tell you, is a BIG DEAL for me - I am a serious voting advocate; I never miss a vote. Even the little local ones. I take it very seriously. So if I say I ain't voting, wow, you know?

My husband wuvs Palin. Whatever. I told him that I thought picking Palin just flushed the whole campaign down the toilet. He asked me who I thought would have been a better pick.

Um....got it! Hillary! Now THAT would've been a ticket!

Palin: 4 out of 10. She had a particularly difficult dive to do: convince the electorate of her gravitas. She got to the hard part and started reading the prompters harder. She made a few deft attacks, otherwise a lot of it was too inside poker for the rest of the country to care. It serves as just good enough of an introduction to allow them to get a foot in the door of the electorate. It keeps them int he game, but it needed to be much more than that.

Many people are rating Palin higher than I did for her attack dog parts, which I felt were mixed. I also faulted her for her accent, which I found a little annoying and nasal at times, but that's probably not fair. Now this gets floated:
It's possible - I don't know where the deviations are.

I also thought she was a bit too factually weak, but I didn't take points off from Obama for that sort of thing. My meter may be a little off.

Yup. I do.

I still like the idea of none-of-the-above. If none-of-the-above wins, they have to do the whole thing over again.

That's a great one Dar, but we'd have to keep the incumbent till the reelection was over.

Preferential voting, guys.
Who do you want most?
Okay, if it's not them, who's your second pick?
And so on, all the way down the ballot.
It's fun because you get to decide who to put LAST!

J. McCain: 8 out of 10. Told his war story personally, which is something he doesn't often do. Call for action and strong ending. Gloss over the issues. Show grace. Part of his job was to show enough vigor to not fall relentlessly behind in image; I think he mostly did that. His tic of grinning at every applause line became distracting.

I tried to watch and listen to the RNC. I really did. Listened to some of Fred Thompson's speech...Rudy...Sarah.

I have no problem admitting I'm a liberal, but I listened to the DNC mostly as a cynic or sideline snickerer. I didn't think Obama's speech was all that great. It was good, but nothing new. But trying to listen to the RNC...it just irritated the shit out of me.

I listened to Palin. I couldn't bring myself to listen to Obama or McCain. I didn't watch either one.

I watched Palin with the sound off.

Analysis: McCain sincere, short on answers
 

From Bill Schneider
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Quote:

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- It's odd to present yourself as a maverick to the most partisan audience imaginable, as John McCain did Thursday night.

Seemed like a rather fair assessment of what l saw as well.

I still think that she is going to bring in a number of people who want to find a reason to vote for McCain. Most of the people want to vote for Obama as a protest vote for the last 8 years of Bush, I understand that, but ask them where Obama stands on some of the issues like health care or the economy and you get a blank stare. Same goes for McCain, people know they want McCain because they can't stand Obama, but they can't tell you much about some of the larger issues pressing society.

We're locked into "against" voting.

We need more than two parties.

Two parties guarantee "against" voting.

I agree.

We do have more than 2 parties. Ah, nevermind. Rock, paper, scissors, anyone?

I actually listened to McCain last night. I was pretty impressed. It is certainly the best speech he's ever given. That said, it's just another speech.

I listened to much of the RNC, including Huckabee's agonizingly slow and boring (and ultimately dumb) story about the teacher that had the desks removed from her classroom. Did anyone else hear it?

All the students were suprised, naturally. When asked about the desks, the teacher replied that they could have desks when they told the teacher how they could earn them. Some kids tried to answer: "get good grades?" nope, "behave?", nope. No one had the right answer and eventually the whole school was abuzz. The kids gave up.

Then the teacher gave the sign and a line of veterans in their uniforms came in and placed the desks in orderly rows for the kids. The teacher explained that the kids didn't need to earn their desks, because these brave veterans had already earned them for them (by defending our country).

Huckabee went on to say that because of John McCain's service to our country we should give him a desk, and "I have just the one in mind" hinting at the president's desk in the oval office.

FFS people, we OWE McCain the presidency because he is a veteran?

No.

We do not.

hehehehehehe....


I know this post is contradicted by a recent post I made in the Fail! thread... but I still find this funny as hell. And.. It's dems and reps doin it. I must say I found the signs MUCH more prominent in the rep's convention.

All those "handmade" signs. They're not.

I guess I'll have to keep my inner cynic alive a while longer...

The conventions are a well orchestrated dog & pony show. They do their best to make sure nothing is left to chance.

One line from McCain's speech actually got me choked up, because it encapsulates so much of what I love about this country:

"This is America: nothing is inevitable here."

Yup...until they goof.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Republican National Convention....hilarious.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=511_1220605235

I think Triumph would have been the perfect VP pick for McCain. All he really wants is someone with celebrity status to attack the Democratic candidates.

"I like Obama. I really do. He would make a great president. For me to poop on!"