[ Posted Wednesday, September 5th, 2012 – 23:37 UTC ]
The first night had two large overarching themes: Women's rights, and President Obama's accomplishments. A multitude of women spoke not only about abortion and being pro-choice, but about equal pay for equal labor. However, the dominating pattern was the constant praise of President Obama, and the effectiveness of his policies. Obama's ability to save the auto industry and create jobs for twenty-nine consecutive months was a focal point in why he deserved to be re-elected. In addition, Obamacare and benefits for veterans were mentioned repeatedly by speakers. Last but not least diversity was constantly stressed. I lost count of the number of times I heard the line, "you should be able to defend the country you love, regardless of who you love." Overall, a very strong performance by the Democrats -- they were consistent in their backing of Obama, and unlike the Republicans they gave examples of concrete policies that have actually made a difference.
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[ Posted Monday, September 3rd, 2012 – 12:00 UTC ]
I was five when President George Bush "beat" candidate Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. At the time I had no clue about politics or party philosophy. However, I did know Al Gore received more overall votes in the election than George Bush, then the members of Supreme Court voted on who would become the next president, and they elected Bush. The election was the first political event that I can remember clearly in my life, and although I was always bound to be a liberal (given the household I grew up in), that lost election established my anti-conservative opinion. I followed the Kerry/Bush election in 2004 with determination (or at least all the determination a nine-year-old can muster), thinking I could somehow impact the results of the election. Of course I was wrong.
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[ Posted Friday, August 31st, 2012 – 16:38 UTC ]
We have reached the eye of the hurricane. Half the storm is over. The Republican Party held their national nominating convention all week, and the Democrats are getting ready to hold theirs next week. So we enter these few days of calm between the howling winds, and to mark the occasion we're going with a unique format here today.
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[ Posted Thursday, August 30th, 2012 – 21:30 UTC ]
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.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 29th, 2012 – 21:37 UTC ]
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.
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[ Posted Tuesday, August 28th, 2012 – 20:54 UTC ]
Before I read what the rest of the online world took away from the first night of the Republican National Convention, I thought I would share my own impressions. These are hastily jotted down, after watching roughly two and a half hours of speakers and pundits (some speakers I missed because I was either flipping through the channels, some of which didn't carry every speech).
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[ Posted Monday, August 27th, 2012 – 17:23 UTC ]
America's oldest pastime is not baseball, or football, or indeed any professional sport. It is not going to the movies, or watching television, or spending time on the internet. It's not communicating with each other via email, telephone, or any other method. America's oldest pastime will be on full display for the next two weeks, because before any of the rest of these things even existed, America has had a love affair with politics that endures and lives on to this day. But politics -- especially as practiced during the national conventions -- is nothing more than intolerance and bigotry writ large. But, unlike the more virulent forms of bigotry, political bigotry is not only celebrated in America but actually downright inevitable -- or at least, it has been since our country began.
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[ Posted Friday, August 24th, 2012 – 15:34 UTC ]
Fast-forward to today, and we have a timeline: Hurricane Katrina. Three years later, Hurricane Gustav interrupts Republican National Convention. Four years later, Isaac threatens the first days of the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Draw your own conclusions.
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[ Posted Thursday, August 23rd, 2012 – 17:46 UTC ]
Anyway, we got the following column submission from "michty6" a while back, but didn't even have time to do the formatting required until now. Sorry for the delay! When submitted, the article was preceded by a cartoon which I couldn't use for copyright reasons -- but, thankfully, we had the perfect C.W. Cunningham cartoon to use instead.
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[ Posted Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 – 16:13 UTC ]
As we approach the "convention season" in the race for the presidency, it behooves us to take another look at how the electoral math currently stands. Mitt Romney chose to announce his running mate rather early, which is just beginning to be reflected in the polling. But, starting next week, each party will likely get a noticeable "convention bump" in the polls. Because the two conventions are happening right after one another, this should stir the big data pot well into September. Which is why now is a good time to look at the state of the race, to establish a baseline to measure all this expected frenzied movement.
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