Some Thoughts on the Republican National Convention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3u1Y0vhtYU

Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech

Living in Spain the last year and a half has given me an interesting approach on American politics.  Here I’m not inundated by the media and its inevitable slant on the issues.   I don’t typically watch the news (it’s in Spanish after all).  Most of my information comes from three sources, the ridiculous crap that people post on Face book, my AOL homepage, and my periodic browsing of CNN.com.  With that in mind, I sat down this morning and watched the two keynote speeches at last night’s RNC. 

 

Before we get started on my impressions, I do have a few things I need to share.  While I don’t consider myself a diehard, I do usually lean towards the left.  I find that the values associated with Liberal thinkers appeal to me more than those of the more hardcore Conservatives.  That said, I would vote for a Republican candidate. Especially if I felt that they were the better candidate and that they would do what was in the best interest of all the people and not just their party supporters, lobbyists, and campaign contributors.  I don’t identify myself with the swing vote, but for the right candidate I could be swayed.

 

Another disclaimer that I need to make is that I voted for the president in 2008.  I fully believed in what he represented both historically and from a policy standpoint.  At the time of his election, President Obama had fresh ideas and a plan to put the country back on track.  Unfortunately, things haven’t gone as planned.  One could easily argue that the country and its people are no better off today than they were at the end of the Bush administration.  This is what I find most troubling.  Things were bad under President Bush, and now with a completely different party, executive, philosophy, etc…, things really haven’t changed for the better.  While you could argue one way or the other WHY this has happened, that’s not my intention in this blog.

So with these things in mind, I sat down and watched the speeches of Clint Eastwood and Mitt Romney.  The Eastwood speech was interesting…. He seemed to ramble and at times became incoherent.  I think in hindsight it will stick out more as a publicity stunt than anything with any real substance.  I was also a little bothered by the whole empty chair routine.  In all I found the whole thing pretty bizarre.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTucyyBRMHY&feature=relmfu

Clint Eastwood's Speech

 

In sharp contrast to the speech of Eastwood was that delivered by Mitt Romney.  For roughly the first 25-30 minutes of the speech, I actually found myself drawn in and impressed with Romney.  He has an interesting story, his father is self-made, he has Midwesterner roots, and a likable family.  I really thought this part of his speech was a positive step away from the wishy-washy career politician label that I had previously heard attached to him. To summarize, I found him likable.

 

Unfortunately, the speech wouldn’t maintain this feeling.  After an incredibly positive and balanced beginning, the type of beginning that “swing” voters are looking for, the second part of the speech took on a much darker tone.  It was during this second part that I felt Romney began to pander to the more radical wing of the party.

 

My question is this, why do the Republicans feel the need to cow tow to the radical fringe that call themselves the Tea Party?  How do they ever expect to attract a mainstream middle of the road voter while they tolerate the bigotry and ignorance of the Sarah Palins, Michele Bachmans, and Todd Akins of the world?  These people are dangerous and frankly, their views do not mesh with the 90% of the population.  I think the Republicans would be much more successful if they embraced a middle of the road conservatism and shunned these right-wing radical nutcases.  Do they really believe that “legitimate rape” doesn’t cause pregnancy (Todd Akin), that all wives should be submissive to their husbands (Michele Bachman), that abortions should be illegal even in the event of a rape (Sarah Palin), or even that gays should be denied the same rights that the rest of us are granted in a FREE country (Paul Ryan), a country that prides itself on the ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Did I miss the class in U.S. History where they said that this only applies if your pursuit of happiness is the same as theirs?

 

 

If you look at two of the more successful campaigns in the last thirty years, the Reagan Democrats and the Clinton Conservative delivered landslide victories for their candidates.  It would be really nice to see either the Republicans or the Democrats return to this strategy of unifying instead of dividing.  In the end, it’s going to take compromise and partnerships to pull us out of this mess, not name calling and divisiveness.