Ok, I’ll say it now to get it out of the way – I’m a registered Conservative, and in November I’ll be voting for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. No, I’m not completely sold, but I believe that generally they will be capable of improving our current economic crisis as well as put an end to Obama’s efforts at transforming the US of A into ‘just another former British colony.’
Thankfully, the NBC News app on my Xbox 360 offered a live stream of the event – and for the first hour or two did so without inane commentary from the incurably indoctrinated meat sacks at NBC news. A lot of the speeches were from successful business owners in the US who built their businesses from the ground up with a steady series of jabs at Obama’s “You didn’t build that” remark (which was also replayed in its entirety as to mitigate the expected ‘playing it out of context’ attacks).
I do like that there was such a strong focus on Americans building a business and realizing the “American Dream” from scratch through desire, hard work, and sacrifice. That’s something which I think has been lost on much of the current generation… the generation that will see others enjoying the benefits of hard work… that wants to enjoy those benefits as well… but either does not realize or flat out ignores just how much time and effort was required to get there.
Several speeches were made, the weakest of which IMHO was by Ted Cruz who is running for the Senate in Texas… a lot of cliche, famous quotes, and completely scripted pauses for applause (that wasn’t quite rousing at least from my POV). To me, he came off more as plastic than passionate.
A side note – I’m not sure exactly how many folks were in the crowd at the convention yesterday – but it seemed that there was a lot of focus on the speakers and the stage and while the place did appear packed from the limited pans through the crowd, and that the feedback from the crowd (cheers, applause) was overly subdued. This is something I’m going to keep in mind when I watch the 2012 Democrat National Convention… because I’m going to fire off a guess here that there will be tons of cameras on the crowd, and that the applause will be near deafening. Call me a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist here, but with NBC in charge of airing the event – I wouldn’t be surprised if the folks at the control boards did this on purpose… meaning that the audio levels from the crowd were deliberately lowered in order to make it appear that they just weren’t that “in to” what was going on. I surely wouldn’t put it past NBC to pull such a shenanigan.
Eventually the ‘big show’ portion of the convention began, with broadcast dinosaurs like Brian Williams and Tom Brokenjaw (Brokaw) commenting. At the onset, Williams had a face to face with Marco Rubio where he repeatedly tried to steer the discussion towards how Rubio felt about the “language” of the convention as well as the fiasco stirred up by Todd Akin. The efforts were poorly executed and obvious to the point that I almost felt bad for Williams as well as NBC for blowing an opportunity to actually ask legitimate questions of Rubio in what was a blatant attempt at fishing for soundbites that could be used to illustrate a rift between the party and one of its all stars. In stark contrast, Rubio handled the half-assed effort like a pro – a pro who knows how the mainstream media works and absolutely refused to play into their game.
Anne Romney seemed alright, even though at least initially (and at a few spots during her speech) – it wasn’t so much that she seemed insincere but she definitely needs to work on her delivery. A majority of her speech focused on her relationship with Mitt, as well as stumping for him and his plans. She definitely came off as ‘first lady’ material, and didn’t creep me out like Laura Bush or Michelle Obama did.
Definite high points were the speeches by Scott Walker of Wisconsin who highlighted the achievements and successes of his efforts in Wisconsin, and of course Chris Christie who had the keynote and also touted his successes in the Garden State while stumping for the party platform as well as Mitt Romney.
Overall I believe the message was delivered, but beyond the speeches given by ordinary Americans who built successful business and the current all-stars of the party who highlighted the success of their Conservative ideas, it seemed reserved – but genuine. In contrast, I’m sure that the DNC will likely be an all out party from day 1 full of softball questions, character assassinations, and the false sense of substance we’ve all grown accustomed to over the past 4 years.
What I can say though is that if the Republicans are hoping to steer more votes their way – they need to take a page from the DNC playbook and back up their substance with a bit more flash. “Stuffy, but genuine” isn’t going to cut it.
NBC’s Brian Williams Obnoxiously Presses Rubio About GOP’s ‘Rape Debate’
