It’s a strange day when you are at a panel for the Republican National Convention where the subject is about National Defense and the U.S. approach to global trade, and a high-ranking Democrat shows up to explain how the next Republican administration will likely handle such matters. Though the panel at The University of Minnesota’s Hubert M. Humphrey’s Institute for Public Affairs had a pretty impressive list of people, including Ambassador Robert Portman, Ambassador Richard Williamson, and no less than Robert C. (Bud) McFarlane, the man behind Star Wars, it was the Joe Lieberman show.
Mom may have given the big speech, but little Piper stole the show. Is it just me, or does this six-year-old make the Republican party a little more tolerable?
Prosperity was the RNC’s official theme on Wednesday. And the unofficial theme? Better get down on those knees and start begging for forgiveness, you sick, sorry, good-for-nothing, beside-the-point “media” types.
No one pays attention to the pollsters, except when we like what they have to say. According to this totally legit poll, Obama has a narrow lead in two of the three battleground states. As for that other state — the one that decided the last election — well, the heat is on. It’s a straight-up tie.
The quake hit back in May and Chinese officials are just now acknowledging that — okay okay, the schools that crumbled to the ground during the shake were kinda sorta built . . . quickly.
MTV just spilled the beans on a well-kept secret: “It’s Britney, B*tch.” Ms. Spears will be the first thing viewers see when they tune into the VMAs this Sunday. It’ll be just like last year! Remember last year? There’s something to be said for an opening act who can’t remember where she is or why the heck these clubbers (ahem, backup dancers) are so in-synch . . . wait, what y’all?
And McCain will speech it up tonight and close out the RNC the only way he knows how — town-hall style, yo. Be there or be . . . selling out seats at Invesco Field. Mmm-hmm.
Almost immediately after the venom-spewing session that was Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention wrapped, an email came across from David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager. Here’s an excerpt:
Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.
Let’s clarify something for them right now.
Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.
And it’s no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.
Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America’s promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women’s suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it’s happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.
This seems to be just the window the Obama campaign is looking for to really hammer home the “McCain and the Republicans are out of touch” message. Not only was there thinly veiled sneering at the term “community organizer” as any sort of legit leadership experience by Guiliani and Palin, the audience was eating it up as well.
While the MSM has been overflowing with general praise for her performance, the blogosphere was quick to react. Marc Cooper’s sarcasm-laden response to Palin’s speech can be found here. P+P’s own Tricia Romano offers her take on Palin and everyone else here. And the website SameFacts has done its own analysis of Palin’s speech vs. “reality” here.
Perhaps most poignant, however, is the comment that was left on Ms. Romano’s piece by “karimah,” an impassioned former community organizer:
A friend of mine forwarded this to me last night directly after the Palin speech and it briefly turned my frown upside down. I like to imagine that this is really how it went down between McCain and his so-called “VPILF.” Enjoy!
While most people would have you believe that Barack Obama has a lock on the youth vote, there’s a pretty large group of people who might tell you otherwise: The Young Republicans. I had arrived at the RNC without a credential but hoping that I might go to actual Republican events, (and not ironically). I wanted to meet the folks whose very name conjures up images of Alex P. Keaton. So, I did the most logical thing: I Facebooked them.
The next day (yesterday), run down from a sinus infection and a fever, yet still hopeful I might find a delegate or two to interview, I was in the women’s restroom washing my hands next to an attractive, well-dressed woman when I noticed her Texas delegate tag hanging around her neck.
