She did it folks! Sarah Palin came out to give a speech and neither fell off the stage, cursed a blue streak, or spontaneously combusted. That means the speech was a rousing success! Then there was the sideshow in the stands. The Palin family decided to play a game of pass the baby, handing the kid off to another person in between every shot. Support the neck! Also there were all those great awkward shots of the kid that knocked up their daughter and the awkward interactions he had with the family and the McCains. They seemed so glad his penis shenanigans put him in a position to be there. Happyfamilyhappyfamilyhappyfamily. I hope the kid made sure the check cleared first before he flew down.
Then there was Rudy Giuliani, who strode to the stage and set the
Mittens gave a bizarre speech labeled by David Brooks on PBS as "borderline insane" about Adam Smith, why the word liberal was a synonym of bad, and seemed to think torture, warrantless arrests, secret trials, and habeas corpus suspension were the ideals this country was founded on. Someone get him a history book. Also Mike Huckabee told a story about veterans who stole desks from children.
The thing that stuck out to me is that they are giving almost zero airtime to any of the alleged policy or plans McCain will theoretically enact if he's elected. The closest they get is saying McCain wants to do something about something. It's all McCain biography and attacks. Want a solution to economic problems? Good luck finding a reference to it, but then again, McCain was a POW and Obama is a liberal. Want a plan to create more jobs? McCain can't raise his arms and Obama wants to tax your air breathing. Want some form of health care coverage? Obama was a fucking community organizer! If you tuned into this wondering what the Republicans want to do the next four years if elected, well they'll get to governing later, they have to talk about McCain and evil liberals first. All you have to do is change out the name Obama and the war and any of these speeches could have been given at any Republican convention since the fifties. There is nothing to distinguish that this party even knows what the major problems facing America in 2008. This is a convention pitched entirely to the base, the 20% of people who still believe in Bush and think the country is on the right track. Good luck on that election strategy.
And for the party that wants to demonize the other as suffering some form of deranged celebrity worship of its candidate, they sure are throwing stones in glass houses. Every speech is taken up by about 80% hero worship of John McCain and exultations of him as the ultimate American, nay God. Over and over and over we are told that we aren't good enough to deserve the honor of his mere presence and that the Presidency should be awarded to McCain as a prize for his meritorious service. They certainly aren't suggesting we should hand the Presidency over to him based on his policies. I'm not sure anyone knows what they are.
Tonight, the finale. John McCain hits the stage. The theme is "Barack Obama was a community organizer!" said in an exasperated and disgusted manner.
Speaker
Tim Pawlenty, Governor and Bridge Destroyer
Ahh, the coveted "I'm the governor of this state, you'll sit there and like what I have to say!" spot. I think his slogan for reelection was "A different kind of embarrassing than Jesse Ventura". No, RNC crowd, this man isn't up there to test the mics, he's giving a speech. At this point I don't think there's any new parts of McCain's biography to read from, so just expect a repeat of the greatest hits. If you see him squinting up there its just that he's trying to convince himself that the McCain/Palin signs say McCain/Pawlenty. No Tim, you're still the governor of Minnesota, deal with it.
Speaker
Senator Sam Brownback
Good thing they got all the crazies out of the way before the final ni.....oh shit Sam Brownback. If you want to see a tense standoff over immigration policy wait till Brownback and Tancredo hit the pre-speech buffet. Rolling Stone once said that this is the man Jesus would vote for and was God's Senator. Apparently Jesus only represents about 3% of the vote in Iowa and doesn't live in any other states. I guess they had to let him speak, lest his God be angered. But really, the last night? I guess too many people pulled out, pretended they were sick, or were indicted.
Nominee for President
Senator John McCain
If this is like any other McCain prepared speech it's going to be horrible. A colossally awful mishmash of obvious reading off a teleprompter, bizarre tonal notes, insincere inflection, weird grins, creepy laughing and creepier smiling, delivered in a voice that would make Joe Lieberman wonder where the energy is. Maybe here is where John will finally lay out some idea of what he actually wants to do with the Presidency. Or he'll just mention that he was a POW and that he's not actually questioning Barack Obama's patriotism when he insinuates he's a traitor. Early ratings estimates show that the first three nights weren't nearly as highly watched as the first three nights of the DNC, so I'm not holding out hopes that nearly 40 million people are going to see John-boy speechify. Maybe that's good. I'm hoping for the sort of uncomfortable comedy that shows up in Ricky Gervais' work. But maybe the kid has a good speech in him. We'll see. God help him if he gets 40 million and bombs.
Bonus drinking game: POW! or whining about the media analysis of the horrible VP pick. You are going to leave a whiskey soaked corpse.
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