11:06 there was an excellent moment when ryan described twenty-somethings, living again in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at faded obama posters and wondering what they can do with their lives. really, it was quite an excellent and devastating speech. i would probably even go read the text.
11:01 'our rights come from nature and god' again. what does 'nature' do here? it must have something to do with something he believes. but what, exactly? or maybe it's just an off appeal to the concept of natural right.
11:00 even the tribute to romney seems heartfelt. geez. giving some religion now. he's got this arena in his palm.
10:56 this is really taking off. nice writing in this speech, actuallly. 'what matters is not the economy that obama inherited, and it's not the one he envisions. it's the one we're living.' and he's really giving this free enterprise and anti-dependency thing a nice runout. so, so much better than romney.
10:54 rice and ryan, among many others, accuse obama of weakness in foreign affairs, and they say that under a romney administration people will know when the rise up against oppressive diictators and demand freedom, america is with them. i actually would think obama deserves some credit in this regard, though i really wish he would take it out on bashar.
10:50 as he's paying tribute to his mom, his daughter goes over and hugs grandma. lord that is a lucky piece of choreography. cutest kiddies since obama.
10:47 ryan's dad always says that you can part of the problem or part of the solution. his dad was eldridge cleaver.
10:45 he's ragging on obama and allies' claim that his basic problem is not communicating well enough. ryan only had to roll his eyes a little on that one. obama's problem is that he's not cloaking the thing effectively in a cloud of jive, and ours is that we're not good enough listeners? (that's a paraphrase.)
10:43 he's definitely picking up steam, and he's relatively gently brutalizing obama. but he is twisting the frigging knife. this is a very good model for their rhetoric going forward.
10:41 he's good though swift on medicare, bringing in his grandma with alzheimer's and his mom the florida retiree. medicare is a promise and we will keep that promise, &c.
10:38 the reps are having a good convention; relatively compelling figures, and certainly plenty to complain about. there should be a bounce. how much depends on how romney does tomorrow night. but i wouldn't expect him to metamorphose into someone else before then.
10:36 i think he's quite nervous. stumbling a bit an can't find a rhythm yet. but the approach is relatively compelling and slightly specific; nice attack on the stimulus, which 'wasn't just spent and wasted, but borrowe, spent, and wasted."
10:32 ryan's dad was a lawyer. this is a problem because he didn't start with nothing. but he made up for it by dying, i suppose. he finished in nothing.
10:30 ryan fucked up his first line. 'i am honored to for vice president of the united states.' i'm kind of glasd i've never spoken to a full arena and a television audience of millions. i'd be pretty nerve-wracked.
10:18 when she was little girl, she carried a .357 magnum. new mexico has a pretty kick-ass governor, i guess. probably she's strapped right now, in case bono shows after all. either way, she's throwing down in a distinctive manner. i don't think i'd seen her before.
10:17 susana martinez's parents started with nothing. imagine that!
10:14 condi, too, hardly bothered to build up romney. everybody, from every wing, has terrible misgivings.
10:11 'the crisis in k-12 education is a threat to our future," etc. well, that there sentence could have produced at any time since the early sixties. it's been a half-century-long crisis so far. we must do something, but we won't. get over it. give up. you can't force people to learn. i guess you could grab a new fad.
10:10 she's attacking the anti-immigrant wing.
10:05 i wish i could take all this deficit stuff seriously. as many have said, you can't sit there talking about tax cuts and increased military spending and have any credibility on deficits. i don't believe they'd cut anything, except maybe a symbolic ax on the nat endowment for the humanities or something. that neither of these parties has any actual commitment to putting the budget in order is what really led to the tea party, and you might see the resurgence, expecially if romney is elected.
9:57 it's hard not to like condi rice. i'm not sure why, exactly. if she were the veep candidate, romney would win, perhaps by substantial margins.
9:53 huck is paying tribute to and quoting bono. i don't think u2 would play this convention, or else they wouldn't have turned to the lead singer of night ranger. however, if u2 was playing the transitions, i'd turn the channel, as the extremely impressive lightshow flashes and bono bellowed. huck didn't really hit the social issues: no doubt instructed in the wake of akin.
9:49 'i care less about where mitt romney takes his family to church, and more about where he takes the country.' notice that this does not entail that huck doesn't have serious misgivings about where mitt takes his family to church.
9:47 huck's parents apparently told him not to wait for 'uncle sugar to feed, lead, and bleed' him. actually a pretty good line.
9:41 huckabee just said he heard a horrible noise from he next hotel room: debbie wasserman-schultz practicing her speech for the dnc. damn, son. though i can see how dws might profoundly irritate someone like huck. he's put that famous weight back on.
9:37 well i lost that big santorum entry. but one thing about santorum: almost unqiquely he does not seem like an egomaniac. pawlenty, christie, mcdonnell: they basically just gave their own stump speeches, told their little canned autobiographies. all that really matters to them is themselves, which is one reason that the anarchist approach is plausible: otherwise you basically get guys like that. pawlenty is doing a bit more for romney, though: "he's smart, gracious, and wise." er.
9:30 tim pawlenty's up now. man they have whole line in bashing biden.
