11:02 they did get better than tepid, though.
11:00 it could have been michele bachmann, y'all.
10:55 chris christie believes in us.
10:53 it must be 'humbling' experience for mitt to sit there soaking up the praise. 'mitt romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear.' wait, like mitch mcconnell you've got him confused with yourself.
10:51 but i do like christie's hardass here's-the-truth rhetorical stance, or the whole frame in terms of truth. on the deficit, e.g. but he does twist it around to jive too.
10:43 "tonight we're going to choose respect over love." wait. awhen you ut it like that . . .
10:39 my father was born with nothing. but he still kicked your father's ass.
10:35 sometimes it's hard to follow your own intro video. christie is as jersey as springsteen.
10:20 everybody is descended from a coal miner. me it's all newspapermen, the only dirtier profession.
10:18 it will be amazing if she gets through this without telling some canned anecdote about someone she met on the campaign trail.
10:17 well, she could be a lot worse. she is really a pretty weird contrast to him, quite girlish and sincere with a hint of steel. maybe it works in bed though. when she says it's the moms of america that hold us together, she's got a point.
10:08 no political wife fo my money can compare to the magnificent michelle. looking at a line of candy crowley, cokie roberts, and andrea mitchell. rather a formidable crew!
10:08 i agree with haley that america deserves mitt romney.
10:00 soon, soon, mitt romney will be revealed in all his peeply hearsonal doomanity, just like hikki naily.
9:57 artur davis accuses the democrats of partisanship. we need to turn to the republicans to heal our divisions, har har.
9:38 orioles 6, white sox 0.
9:35 wow he completely dicked romney. not a word about romney or ryan in that speech. left it to the last phrase.
9:30 santorum is quite an above-average speaker though; this 'hands that built this country' thing is good, almost jesse jackson-style in its patterns of repetition. the religious thing always lurks behind the rhetoric and the rhythm, and he's definitely connecting, for the first time this convention. he's given so so many speeches in the last year and a half; he's got the beat, baby.
9:27 as soon as the other party gets in power, you go all: "no man is above the law."
9:25 santorum: "half of all americans are receiving some form of government benefits." i have heard this used as an argument on the other side; it's like we've got you over a barrel; look you can't vote against your own interest. of course, we created the structure of interests. but one thing you've got to say; it should constitute an electoral advantage for democrats. and the wider the spread of the programs the greater the advantage. and we do need to ask as we go along: leaving aside the next ten years of program x, is this the way we want to live?
9:20 oh hell santorum's digging up his autobiography again. his grandfather has already died a thousand times.
9:00 but scott walker got a standing o even just announcing wisconsin's delegate count. still he's fundamentally pretty dull.
8:54 speakers may never get much more than a tepid response in the arena; they decided not to go in the direction of something anyone could possibly be enthusiastic about; pure whitebrad hooha. maybe they can pipe in recorded crowd noise from sarah palin rallies.
8:50 mcdonnell of va: "we need a dynamic opportunity society." he is extraordinarily repulsive, a rising star.
8:21 'machines run by taxpayers like us'. and vice versa.
8:18 obamacare makes kelly ayotte cry. she just loves this fucking country so fucking much.
8:15 i'm assuming there are protests. but i have seen no coverage.
8:07 the oak ridge boys!
8:02 cnn's headline leading off the hour: "isaac closes in on the gulf coast. a complication for republicans." wait. what did you say?
7:42 this mia love person - a young black mormon from utah - is very compelling. actually we've had some great black female politicians. shirley chisholm and barbara jordan, e.g. but also some clunkers; i'm not feeling sheila jackson lee or maxine waters, for example. mia's preaching self-reliance right now. and she's an aerobics instructor! her reading of the cliches cobbled together by romney's sub-sub staff is at least passionate. and brief always goes over well.
7:30 'barack obama doesn't understand the american dream.' that reince priebus is a rather unimpressive person in this context.
7:20 as you know, my primary goal in life is not to have my death reported as having been caused by auto-erotic asphyxiation. another great aspiration of mine is to live in such a way that my spouse, if any, is never called upon to 'humanize' me in the media.
6:48 amazing how that isaac kind of spun itself into a perfect galactic hurricane just as it blew ashore. it wound itself up like a top. might be worse than they thought. i mean it it looks like nothing until it spirals into landfall. they're saying the pressure is dropping.
6:20
6:10 boehner managed not even to announce paul's total. you know, dissing people tends to irritate them. funny but the outcome of the election could turn on paul's enthusiastic endorsement of gary johnson. if you go to johnson's website, it's more about paul than about himself, which is sort of pitiful. i'm assuming that democratic super-pacs coud fund the libertarian party?
5:54 like, rhode island promoted 'adele's lemonade': it's like, so very american. 'the pheasant hunting capital of the world': south dakota. wait don't they realize that herman cain is the next president of the united states?
5:44 these ron paul people never made any sense in the republican party. they have to see that now.
5:31 the way c-span is doing the score is a bummer. just romney and 'others.' maine got 14 for romney, 10 for paul. minnesota: 33 paul, 6 romney. nevada 17 paul, 5 romney.
5:20 nothing is more quaint than the roll-call vote. i just wish paul had hundreds. it's sinking in now, state by state: shit we're nominating mitt romney! ok florida came in with 3 for paul. hawaii too. iowa!? 22 for paul, 6 for romney?! somebody is pissed. mitch mconnell proudly cast all his seed for 'mitch i mean mitt.' this is about me i mean you.
4:07 you know what's sad? republicans really have trouble rounding up decent entertainment. the, um, oak ridge boys? wait actually that's g.e. smith up on stage with someone now, while matrons do the hustle. it's like the saturday night live band from 1992. could be worse. throwing down some blues.
3:39 back in 2000, the philly inquirer got me to write with a late deadline on at least the first couple of nights of the dem convention. i gave them this, which they did print. (well they held the hole and it was 10:30). but i worked for them less after that. anyway, it shows you some of the ways things have changed since then. it was a simpler, more innocent time, before we realized that man is mortal or that shit goes awry.
3:10 if 'welfare' means 'black,' is it possible to debate welfare policy at all? or are all such programs exempt from examination?
3:07 on the other hand, i'm very not looking forward to ann romney's attempt to 'humanize' mitt romney, to 'give a deeply personal point of view,' etc. it sucks that the cops got the anarchists' pile of rocks.
believe it or not i have had many fond and vicious moments watching political conventions on television. john yang just now trying to make his way through the scrum on the floor to talk to ron paul and getting shoved out of the way on msnbc: classic. the first i remember was dems and yippies in chicago in '68; well, that will never be surpassed. but how about the chaos dems of 1972, or ford v reagan in 1976, or teddy v jimmy 1980. vidal v buckley. there actually have been pretty classic speeches, pat buchanan seting off high explosives, e.g. now in this time of candidates who fail the turing test, such as gore, kerry, or romney, few interesting things can possibly happen speechwise; however, you can always hope for things to go terribly terribly wrong on national television, which also does happen. looking forward to chris christie tonight. the most insufferable moments are the tribute videos: 100% visual, verbal, and musical cliches. god looks down upon convention videos and grows weary, infinitely weary. He of course recreates all that is at every moment, keeping it in existence by sheer force of will, at least until he nods off. at any rate, i will blog bits this evening. i guess the medium would be twitter, but i'm not on twitter.
