The Big Pep Rally

The political conventions of today are no longer exciting unless it's your party that's having the gala. All the speeches are now vetted by the presumptive nominee's people and fed into a teleprompter. There's not a chance that we will hear anything that will resemble Pat Buchanan's "1992 Culture War” speech but there are elements in the GOP who would still stand up and cheer that type of speech.

I don't know if last night's speeches were choreographed or negotiated because it seemed to me that the governors were touting their own success, bashing Obama, and barely mentioning Mitt Romney.
Ann Romney gave a good speech in support of her husband, although it's hard to imagine that as a young couple, they ate off an ironing board that was supported by two saw horses. It's well known that Mitt Romney sold some stock to get by, but it's their story and they're sticking to it. Ann Romney was there to humanize Mitt Romney, and she did as well as a wife could do. Ann gave a wink and a nod to women voters assuring them that Mitt Romney is on their side. She emphasized love for one another.

Chris Christie followed Ann Romney as the keynote speaker for the night. I thought that he contradicted Ann Romney emphasis on love by saying, "We need politicians to care more about doing something and less about being something." "Tonight, we choose respect over love." As usual, his words played to the base by blaming the unions and everything Democrat as the reason for our doldrums. Christie's speech didn't have the usual pizzazz because he was obviously using a teleprompter. He's a much better speaker when he's spontaneous. Rachel Maddow said he went into 1,800 words of his 2,600 word speech before he mentioned Mitt Romney. Fox New's Chris Wallacxe was not impressed saying " I have to say, personally, I thought it was one of the most off-key keynote speeches I ever heard." He noted that Christie said the word "I" 37 times, "Romney" seven times, and "jobs" one time.His speech sounded more like an audition for a 2016 presidential run. I was surprised that Christi and Ann Romney praised the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the federal government, the G.I. Bill because their dads made good use of it. Thank FDR for that.

I don't know why the so-called liberal media bothers to interview the politicians who are attending the convention. It'll be the same way when the Democrats have their convention next week. When the media asks a Republican about their platform or the views of Todd Akin, they all say," the platform is there just for show, and only the liberal media is worrying about Todd Akin." Even Todd Akin is convinced that the liberal media conspired to get him. It doesn't matter to him that every GOP leader and talk show host from conservative media wanted him to get out.

I was surprised that MSNBC, Fox, and CNN did not cover Ted Cruz's speech live. I saw the speech this morning and it convinced me that he's a legitimate Tea Party candidate. His speech was more about liberty than anything else.

I can remember the days when we found something else to do when political conventions were being televised on all three networks. A pundit said that he wouldn't be surprised if the televised portion will be reduced to the final day.

It’s interesting that Afghanistan was missing from the speeches. It was day one, perhaps they are leaving that for Mitt Romney.

Fact checkers sites are not needed anymore because campaigns no longer care if you call them out for lying. The campaigns are results oriented. We only have to look at our local letters and comments on our online forum to see that people are taking the campaign ads as fact and they repeat them verbatim.