convention

I hope Mr. Steele is not part of any race dividing of our Nation.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele was among the speakers who attended the 10th annual State of the Black Union convention.

#)*!?^%# WHAT . . . Black State, Black Union?  Where in the hell, have I been.  Did the Anti-America Social Liberals add another union and state for Blacks Only?

It looks as if Mr. Wright’s God Damn America wish, and the Social Liberal Whites and Blacks, have what they have always planned to have.  They have a Perfect Social Liberal Liar as President of the United States of America.  The liar is so good he causes his Social Liberal Politicians to look and sound angelic.  What is so sad is the GOP keeps bending over, getting on their knees, and kiss ass so they can receive the blessing of God Obama, the Perfect Liar. 

When copyright protection goes too far, you get stuff like this.

Last night, I created and posted the video below to YouTube.  Immediately after processing, I received a notification from YouTube that ITN News, a British media company, has claimed all rights to footage of the Republican National Convention, and my video would be disabled unless I chose to pursue a denial of their claim.

No, there are two things to note.  First, the video was not obtained from ITN, but rather from C-Span.  Second, the video was used in accordance with C-Cpan's copyright policy here: http://rnc08.cspan.org/About/Copyright.aspx

So YouTube has effectively become the watchdog for ITN who is misusing the copyright process to a) prevent anyone from posting convention video and b) prevent anyone using video from another source for posting convention video.

Fred Thompson--Good speech in general. But he was all over the place, with no single message.

Mitt Romney--He sounded a little forced. His message was that government was bad, but I don't know if the undecided independents agree with that sort of messaging.

Mike Huckabee--He was good, and had some excellent lines. But he could have helped a little more if he explained the Republican economic plan instead of talking about school desks.

Rudy--His knocks against Obama were great, especially the voting present stuff. Still no economic message, though.

Palin--Obviously the best speech at the convention.

Ridge--I didn't pay attention.

Grahamnesty--He sounded shrill, although his statements on Iraq were justified and much-needed.

McCain--I don't know. The delivery was mediocre, but improved. I thought that he was good when he talked about policy, but that only took up about 10 sentences. I don't think it changed any minds or convinced anybody. The one good thing I can say is that it powerfully refuted the arguement that he wants a third Bush term by showing that he was his own man. 

Though the title of this post is facetious, I cannot deny what I just witnessed. I had never heard Sarah Palin give a speech until tonight. I now know why John McCain chose her for his running mate. In fact, I have to say that, at least tonight, she was perfectly vetted.

As far as political theater goes, if we can reduce tonight to so small and cynical a concept, this was the best show I've ever seen. Gov. Palin is country feisty with a smile; she carries a hint of redneck incredulity about her that is squarely aimed at the temerity and presumption of Ivy League and Beltway elitism. She looked quite stunning as she delivered lines that will be iconic by morning. And she created a metaphor that sticks: She's a pitbull with lipstick.

And her family! Oh, my gosh, were they not perfect? Her husband beaming with pride and love; her girls, one pregnant, all smiling and waving and looking lovely, with a future son-in-law in tow; the little baby Trig getting a quick swab of sisterly saliva as his big sister preened him; and the humble gratitude of her mother and father -- Egads! Could it have been written any better? Just seeing her youngest daughter waving, so innocently and with such earnestness, was enough to touch countless heartstrings. Seriously, I am not saying that the McCain-Palin ticket is the better ticket, I am only saying that I have never seen anything like this before. The whole thing was simply amazing. How could anyone disagree?

But the theater of it all, even if it was much more than theater, is short-lived. I recognize that Gov. Palin's speech was filled with criticisms of Sen. Obama (many of which were quite clever, I must say). I know that she infuriated countless pro-Obama supporters; she flirted with being incendiary. I saw it, heard it, felt it; and I could almost hear folks around the country screaming at their TVs. But what she did tonight is at least part of the political game, and it is quite clear that senators Obama and Biden have their work cut out for them. Gov. Palin, even without John McCain, is a formidable opponent. So I brace myself for what comes next for all involved, Republican and Democrat. I pray we won't witness anything so unfairly brutal or brutally unfair that we regret being Americans.

Here's hoping for a fair and even fight in the days ahead.

Prediction: After tonight, Democrats everywhere will be arguing that the next Democratic Convention in 2012 should follow rather than precede the Republican Convention. Surely they see how easy it was for Gov. Palin to playfully but effectively mock the "styrofoam Greek pillars" of the Democratic National Convention, no?

Peace.

©Contratimes/2008. All Rights Reserved.

Well. That was awesome. I'm awash in a hardy glow of Sarah Palin's rockstar glory.

We could not have asked for a stronger statement from her than this. I'll get my one criticism out of the way first: I would not have concluded with Vietnam. No one can do more justice to the service than Fred and Huck did in their speeches, and I thought the obliqueness she began with towards his service really underscored his service and her son's, but didn't hit you over the head with the details we all know. But this is a tiny, tiny complaint. (Patrick Ruffini has kindly provided the text of the speech here, so that's where these are all coming from.)

Critically, she came out poised from the beginning. Of course, Rudy and Huck pulled everything out of their bag of tricks to get people loosened up and fired up in the Excel Center -- Rudy totally rocking the scrappy pep rally vibe of the audience, and Huck (who I preferred) telling that really wonderful story about the desks.

This speech was huge, though, and she didn't flinch. At all. Sarah Palin came out with guns blazing, re-introducing the family, and ensuring that the image people have of her tomorrow is a woman who can knock the hell out of a speech. The enumeration of what she has done as governorwas so choice. It feels like we haven't heard anything about factual things anyone has done all week, until she started in on the pipeline, the tax cuts, the surplus, the removal of excess perks.

The highlight, from a policy standpoint, was the little overture on foreign oil dependence and drilling here:

 Michael Savage needs to take a chill pill.

No one wants to be Mark "Where's the Bounce?" Penn this week. Any hard and fast proclamations about polls should be resisted, though the race apparently tightening post-Biden is certainly one data point to consider. 

We can only conjecture about the environment, and how it is likely to affect the polls. And the environment is less than it could be for the Obama-Biden ticket during their big week.

• Biden isn't inspiring and doesn't win votes. I can appreciate this was a governing decision, and not a campaign decision. But that will cost Obama in the bounce department in the next couple of weeks, and lead him to underperform in September polling once the RNC dust has settled (assuming McCain does well with his VP pick).
• The Clinton chatter is dominant. The Clintons will get two nights in Denver -- Hillary Tuesday, and Bill Wednesday. The coverage on the cables so far this morning has been all about the Clintons. High-profile Clinton surrogates complaining about the lack of VP vetting with the RNC/McCain capitalizing, Bill being upset about his speech topic, Hillary jerking her delegates around, effectively telling them "Nevermind" after making a show about the "catharsis" of the roll call a couple of weeks ago. If the Clintons really wanted to screw with Obama's chances, setting up Hillary 2012, this would be the week to do it. And this is what they seem to be doing.
• The DNC program leaves much to be desired. Is Michelle Obama big enough to carry her own night when you typically want 2-3 high profile speakers in prime time? Jim Leach (this is the biggest Republican you could find for Obama?) and Claire McCaskill being given more prominent slots than the emotional Kennedy tribute? 50% of the Convention being devoted to the Clintons, with all the distractions that brings. Where the RNC schedule is almost too cluttered (Lieberman, Schwarzenegger, Cheney & Bush on one night), the DNC's barely packs a punch.

Of course, 80% of the bounce will come post-Thursday, so any speculation here is mostly academic. But the schedule and optics aren't optimized for an above-average bounce. And as 2004 showed, the lack of a convention bounce matters.

It’s official, Obama isn’t just running a negative campaign, he's running an all-out smear fest.  Obama’s Ralph Reed ad accusing McCain of being in bed with Jack Abramoff is especially Swift Boat-like.  He's going after McCain’s strength in a very Rovian way, never mind how baseless the attack is.

The Obama campaign is counting on the classic “he started it” argument and a docile media to let him continue his Different Kind of Campaign shtick, and without some very aggressive action from the McCain campaign that’s exactly what will happen.  McCain’s press shop has been admirably swift and aggressive in rebutting Obama’s attacks, but they need to run a paid media play as well.

McCain should run spots during the Democratic National Convention hitting Obama for corruption (see Rezko scandal, Freddoso’s new book) and hypocrisy (for running a “Karl Rove Style Negative Campaign,” literally use Rove’s name, it’ll spark a fantastic press frenzy).  The spots are primarily about disrupting Obama’s convention coverage and would be a perfect hook for the party’s robust Denver strike team.

Check below the jump to see 9 of Obama’s recent negative spots.

A bit ago I created a Facebook group petitioning to make Bobby Jindal the GOP Convention keynote speaker. I hadn't checked in on it in a while. Much to my surprise, it's now grown to 481 members. That's a lot for a sort of insidery issue like this.

You can join here.

Jindal has made clear that he won't be McCain's VP -- to do so after just 7 months in the Louisiana governor's mansion would be suicide. But he can make his mark as the convention's keynote speaker. Who better to counterprogram Obama than someone who's like Obama in many ways, except with accomplishments?

President Bush will speak on Monday night. Joe Lieberman will probably fill the "Zell Miller" slot on Wednesday night, followed by the VP nominee. Jindal should give one of the Tuesday night speeches, in the 10-11pm ET time slot.

I'll be in St. Paul at the convention, and I'd like nothing better than to see the GOP putting forward a fresh face to lay out for the American people the real Obama. The GOP convention schedule is being finalized as we speak. Let's make a big push for Bobby Jindal.