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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.
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.
I promised to post this, but I don't have time to update the site to make it easily play here. If you're interested in hearing the interview I did on Jamaican radio this Monday, with Rob Richie of FairVote.org, here is the mp3 file if you'd like to download it and play it (it's [...]
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.