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As always, we are here to bring you the burning questions of the day that nobody else is asking. Today's question: What will we call the 2012 women?
We come to you live from the arena, the day after the vice-presidential debate. The lights are being removed, the podiums are gone, and the cleanup crew is sweeping up the tiny, tiny pieces of Paul Ryan which were left all over the stage last night.
Wouldn't it be amusingly ironic if Mitt Romney only managed to get 47 percent of the national popular vote for president? It would renew my faith that the universe has a sense of humor, that's for sure.
The second item of note is that today marks the fifth "birthday" of this column series. September 14, 2007 saw the very first Friday Talking Points column ever (although the name and the column format wouldn't solidify for a few months). Since then, almost every Friday, we've been attempting to provide Democratic talking points for politicians to use to get their point across in a snappy and memorable fashion. How much success we've had doing so is open to interpretation, but we're still here doing it, which tends to indicate that Democrats still have a ways to go to match the Republican ability to keep "on script" during interviews. To put this another way, it's the old Democratic "herding cats" problem.
Part of this thinking ("conventional thinking" one might call it, if one were looking for a cheap laugh) most likely stems from the fact that professional pundits (those on expense accounts, in other words) were visibly worn out in Charlotte. The Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention appeared on each others' heels this year, with absolutely no break between the two. This wasn't a problem for the partisans on either side, but it was indeed exhausting for the professional journalists covering both events. I spoke to very conservative and very liberal "A-list" media folks who all said almost exactly the same thing: "The last two weeks have been such a blur, it's hard to keep it all straight in my mind." Which leads to wondering if the media won't eventually pull back on their own coverage -- further than they already have, that is.
The election of President Barack Obama made me realize that I could no longer be an observer on the sideline. I had to be a participant, so I became an American citizen. I knew I had made the right decision when my husband Chris and I attended Barack Obama's inauguration in January 2009. It was a day I will never forget. [Editor's note: see photo, above] There we were, two amongst thousands, on the Mall in Washington D.C. in the freezing cold waiting to see the swearing in on the giant TV screen. Before the event started, Bono warmed us up. It was worth it though to experience that "being a part of something great" feeling.
OK, let's get right to my immediate impressions of the final night of the Republican National Convention. I'm going to quickly describe the opening acts, and then get into the big speeches of the night.
Welcome once again to my musings and snap judgments which I jot down right after watching the Republican National Convention speeches, and before I read what the rest of the online universe has to say. This way, my opinions might be wildly out of sync with everyone else, but at least you'll know they're not influenced by others. My Day One impressions were fairly close to what others are saying, so make of that whatever you will.
Today we present an article written by one of ChrisWeigant.com's most prolific commenters, "Michale." When I called for article submissions for this month, I said I would not limit the point of view presented, so (to put it mildly) this is not exactly an article I would have written myself. But it is indeed the type of article I'd write (from a very different viewpoint, of course) -- an analysis of the upcoming election and how outside events might change it, for better or worse. So, without further ado, I will turn the CW.com soapbox over to Michale for today.
With that "fair warning" out of the way, there are two highly amusing talking points coming from the Republican camp this week. If your irony-detector is as acute as mine, you'll appreciate the GOP completely and utterly destroying two of their bedrock positions just to score a few cheap political points. I don't know about you, but I find this sort of thing to be one of the more enjoyable forms of political entertainment around.