[Insert Name Here]
Sometimes you catch a bit of a news report or a piece of text from an article that beautifully frames what a phony game all this convention business really is. Happened to me this evening while reading the Washington Post, with this passage:
Sitting around a dining room table, the McCain team has talked to her about Iraq, energy and the economy but has focused on what she should say in her speech, struggling almost as hard as she has to prepare for what will be, along with a debate in October, her main opportunity to shape the way she is viewed by voters. Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch."
Few politicians write their own speeches anymore. But even my jaded eyes bugged at the idea that McCain's campaign had already written tonight's speech before they knew who the running mate would be.
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Get ready for your eardrums to bleed.
I'm not the first person to note this, but conventions are basically as scripted as any drama or sit-com is.
Who wants to be she cries?
*bet she cries.
So if she wins does that make her husband the Second Dude? Will Mrs. McCain call herself the first Dudette?
Does S stand for Sugardaddy?
I don't see why a moose-eatin, polar bear shootin woman can't deliver a "masculine" speech.
First dude got a standing O!
ALWAYS PROUD OF AMERICA!!!!!!!
Take that Michelle !
"ALWAYS PROUD OF AMERICA!!!!!!!"
Except when shes hanging out with the Alaska Nationalists.
ALWAYS PROUD OF AMERICA!!!!!!!
Except when you want your state to secede.
If Sarah Palin ever becomes President, can my state secede again?
Damn, BDB, beat me to it!
"I'm not part of the long time political establishment."
I guess just her running mate is.
This is one problem with Palin as I see it.
If McCain says that his experience is a qualifier and Obama's inexperience is a liability then the natural question is, then why did you pick Palin?
If Palin says she is better than Biden because she is an outsider and not part of a long time political establishment, then the response is naturally that McCain is surely part of the long time political establishment.
I'm afraid this plain palin talk will actually work with many voters.
Republicans cheered Unions.
And a windfall profits tax.
And I am horribly, horribly confused.
Did you know the Alaska Republican Party Platform says that "promiscuity" and "pornography" are "social dysfunctions" that they pledge to combat?
They also expose any extension of "gaming and gambling."
http://www.alaskarepublicans.com/PartyPlatform.aspx
Fuck. She's doing well.
Well, I was wondering how the Dems would lose, and I guess I don't have to wonder anymore.
Oh snap!
She's almost funny!
"Who wants to be she cries?"
Nope - the weepy victim routing is a Democrat specialty.
O RLY? The bitching about the meanie media I've been hearing about the last two days came from Democrats?
Why couldn't the Dems put someone like this on TV?
Hell, why couldn't the Libertarians put someone like this anywhere?
Republicans cheered Unions.
And a windfall profits tax.
Can we just gas those morons, now?
"O RLY? The bitching about the meanie media I've been hearing about the last two days came from Democrats?"
Pointing out that the media has a liberal bias ain't crying - it's stating an absolute fact.
Did Biden blow a kiss to an old war buddy during the Dem convention?
Maybe if this were 1984. There are so many media outlets now it is hardly a monolith.
Did Biden blow a kiss to an old war buddy during the Dem convention?
War? Biden? He had 5 drafte deferments like Cheney
Was god supposed to appear and had a last minute cancellation or something?
As a writer, do you not have a stock of topics, views, phrases, etc. you keep in a file for later use? I do.
I often will salivate over a phrase, word, punchline, but have to store it for later until I find the appropriate post to put it in. Just like a speech can be prepared, but tweaked once you have the right person to deliver it. Not a big deal.
Palin did a good job of zinging Obama on his puffed up image of himself with those lines about his self designed presidental seal and mocking his "healing the planet" remarks.
They wrote the whole speech and then had to find a western female governor with five kids and fisherman husband to give it. Do we know who wrote the Chosen One's speech? Surely superman doesn't employ speech writers.
Dave. Your Washington Liberal is showing.
The line about dragging collumns off to the Holywood set was brillant, really Reaganesque.
Is it just me or could you close your eyes and think the Republicans have nominated the highway patrolman from Fargo?
Ron Paul is going to be on Tavist Smiley in the next 10-20 minutes. I'm curious to hear what he thinks of Palin.
John,
Somebody called her a cross between Marge Gunderson and a generic Sandra Bullock character.
That movie character description is dead on.
Did Biden blow a kiss to an old war buddy during the Dem convention?
Look, man, the shit that Tom Moe went through is not just some "old war buddy" shtick. I'm going to go all provincial and say that the man graduated from my University and cyncism in light of the crap he went through is terribly inappropriate.
Tom Moe's Story.
I'd hit it.
"Not anticipating that McCain would choose a woman as his running mate, the speech that was prepared in advance was "very masculine," according to campaign manager Rick Davis, and "we had to start from scratch.
Few politicians write their own speeches anymore. But even my jaded eyes bugged at the idea that McCain's campaign had already written tonight's speech before they knew who the running mate would be."
Reading comprehension is a prerequisite to writing. You might look up the term "start from scratch".
Woof
I like Sarah Palin more for her disposition than anything she has explicitly said or done. It thaws my icy heart to hear a politician speak with such clear antagonism towards environmentalism, for instance, and that Palin is a Christian fundamentalist is less scary when weighed in opposition to Mccain's grotesque national reverie.
Consider the unlikely prospect of a Mccain presidency slightly less nauseating.
"Consider the unlikely prospect of a Mccain presidency slightly less nauseating."
I just don't see a McCain presidency as being that bad. In fact, I think some major liberal reforms have a much better chance of becoming reality under him. If McCain gets in then the Warner-Lieberman climate control bill should sail through, if Obama was in then the GOP Congressional delegation would play the opposition and hold it up. Not so much if the Prez is GOP. Also, I think some tweaking of McCain-Fiengold can go through to tighten that up (I realize that is unpopular with some here). Corporate reform as well as some kind of taking the oil companies to the wookdshed is going to get through much easier under a McCain presidency as well.
A speech that appealed to John, Gil, and people who hate environmentalism.
If McCain gets in then the Warner-Lieberman climate control bill should sail through,
I think some tweaking of McCain-Fiengold can go through to tighten that up
That seals it. I'm voting Barr.
Is it just me or could you close your eyes and think the Republicans have nominated the highway patrolman from Fargo?
I've noticed that, too. Won't hurt them in the northern tier battleground states.