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AP story on Bush's big response to the convention:
July 30, 2004 | Grand Rapids, Mich. -- President Bush attacked John Kerry's 19-year record in the Senate on Friday, answering the Democratic convention mantra “America can do better” with a new GOP refrain of his own: “Results matter.”
Bush repeated the slogan to crowds here and in Springfield, Mo., the first two stops on a swing through four key election states. He also is campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania, wrapping up his latest tour with a rally Saturday in Pittsburgh, just hours after Kerry speaks in a nearby suburb.
Now that, I would not have expected. Results matter? Wouldn't an incumbent with a job approval rating below 50% be trying to keep that idea as quiet as possible? Isn't the perception that results matter the most powerful force working to eject him from office?
Can Karl Rove really be that stupid? He's usually not. I'm puzzled.
Another phrase in the piece made me chuckle as well:
He sprinkled throughout his speeches another new campaign slogan: “We're turning the corner and we're not turning back.”
I can see how he would want people to think that, but does he really think many people do feel it? The polls are showing him in dismal ground on the crucial right-track/wrong-track question, too. It would appear that his big problem is that people don't believe we're turning the corner, but sliding toward the abyss.
I'm sure there's a crafty way of convincing them otherwise, but just repeating it? That will work with some things people don't already have a strong feeling about already--like your opponent is a flipflopper or congenital liar--but you're not going to turn them around on something so deeply internalized as that just by saying it.
Lacking a bit of subtlety, aren't they?
Hard to believe that's the best they're coming up with.
And finally there's this:
During the next two weeks, Bush will talk about helping Americans adjust to a changing economy, increasing home ownership, overhauling Social Security and letting workers opt for time off as compensation, rather than overtime pay -- an issue that has riled unions, Democrats and some moderate Republicans.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign accused the president of addressing middle class concerns just three months before the election.
Usually a charge like that causes my eyes to roll, but in this case it seems dead-on--because isn't that the very thought likely to spring to mind in the average voter when they hear this big new plan? After four years as pres, it suddenly occurs to you to address the home front three months before you want me to hand you a second term?
Isn't that the very mistake his father made? Tried to suddenly be the domestic president a few months before the election, and no one was buying his sudden interest?
If they had just put this plan out in January, and been harping on it all year, they could have sold it--at least sold the genuine interest and intent--but now? Seems like the bolder he acts on domestic issues now, the more he emphasizes the disinterest his entire term.
Who said Karl Rove was a genius?
Brilliance at guerrilla tactics to undermine and unseat the reigning power is a whole different animal than brilliance at building popular support once you've got it. Just ask Newt Gingrich.
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6:36:27 PM
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Thank God for The Daily Show.
For oh, so many reasons, but mostly for calling the dickheads on their insanity.
And for keeping me laughing my ass off, of course--like a great riffing on John Edwards speach, and their hysterical alternative bio-film of John Kerry, including my favorite throwaway line about him settling for a condiment heiress.
But laughs I can get elsewhere when I need them. Only TDS provides this kind of public service:
The segment began with this intro from Jon: "By far, the highlight of the evening, and perhaps the convention, was the rousing speech by the Rev. Al Sharpton."
They played a few extended clips to prove it, and to remind those of us who watched it just how incredible it was.
(For the record, I give Edwards the highest marks for succeeding at what he and the Dems needed to do, and Barack Obama touched me the most deeply, but it's hard not bask in amazement at what Sharpton did up there. Stunning speech: powerful points delivered with insight and eloquence. He ended by describing his post-9/11 moment, on a radio show pausing to listen to Ray Charles singing America The Beautiful. He recited a few of the lovely passages about purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain. Then he reminded us that we lost Ray recently, and it occured to him that Ray wasn't singing so soulfully about anything he had seen, because he had been blind for most of his life. He was singing about how he imagined it to be, what he beleived America could be, and that's what drives people like us on; we look out at America and we love it not just for what we see there, but what we imagine it can be. Wow. Give the man a pulitzer for that passage alone. And divisive? Sure he's angry about a few things, and wasn't afraid to say so, but can you imagine a more positive, upbeat, unifying theme to wrap his message up with?)
So I'm watching the Sharpton clips on TDS, still reeling from the wave of emotions they brought back to me, and Jon sums up by saying, "Now Al Sharpton's speech was clearly the oratorical highlight of the convention so far, and it no doubt made the pundits happy to finally have themselves some unscripted excitement."
Cut to a series of quick clips of the dickhead class taking a big dump all over him, with Chris Matthews leading the charge at MSNBC, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, of all people, saying, "It's grating, you can't bear to listen to it," and Newsweek's ever reliable Howard Fineman questioning the judgement of the Kerry campaign, presumably for even allowing him on to the stage.
Back to Jon sitting at the desk, stunned, silent, eyes bugged out. Finally, he flips his palms out. "What the fuck were you guys watching?"
He went on to rip them a new asshole. Particularly Chris Matthews for actually cutting him off to gab. That part was news to me. What a crime. What an asshole. But we knew that.
And they gave it pretty good to Howard Fineman, who trashed Sharpton repeatedly, and went out on a limb to speak for black people--this from a coiffed cracker so removed from America he sounds ridiculous even trying to represent a white person--who he assumed were insulted by having one of theirs given so much time up on the podium. Stewart showed more captivating clips about the blood-soaked right to vote they had fought for so dearly and remained so precious to them, and then cut from shot to shot of awestruck African Americans in the crowd.
Like that was hard call to make. What lens are these people watching through? They must have brought a whole lot of baggage in with them.
Anyway. Thank you Jon Stewart and friends. You make life bearable sometimes. I'm not the only one thinking these thoughts.
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2:38:09 PM
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Great comment from Gail in the Kerry post below, which crystalized some of my thoughts:
I have to admit that I was terrified of Kerry's speech before hand. I had no idea how he'd do, and I was afraid he'd be a horrible, horrible bore. I was very surprised. I felt like he was making a real effort to be personable, and by the end, he was showing real passion - I'd never seen that from him before. Sure, I didn't get chills or cry the way I did listenign to Obama, but I did feel by the end of the speech that this was a man who would do a very good job as president. Which I think was the point.
The fact that Kerry is a bit ponderous and dull almost works to his advantage, I think. We need a serious, "adult" president right now. I wonder how Gore's "stiffness" would have played if the first time we saw him was this year - it might have come off as serious and appropriate.
So, I was very happy with his speech, and he did have some great moments.
I never came close to crying either--which Obama produced several times, especially the second time I watched; and this has to be a first for me, watched a politician's speech twice--or the chills that Edwards produced. He didn't wisk me off my chair and sail me around the room like Edwards, singing inside my head that we finally had a candidate who could electrify the country and rally us behind him.
But he did a pretty good job. And he did work himself up to the point where he actually showed some passion. That's crucial, I think. I never saw that from him before either. He is such an off-the-charts pretentious -- sorry to use this word, but all I can think when I see him is What a pretentious asshole! -- that he's completely obscured as a human behind that preposterous Charlton Heston As Moses shtick he hides behind. (Don't you picture him waking up in the morning, and exuding to his lovely wife in his best baritone 60s radio-announcer voice, "Good morning my lovely wife. What a fetching moment to exude to you"?)
For the first time ever in my company, the actual human being living somewhere inside that body pushed past the royal dickhead and actually emoted live in front of us.
That's a crucial step for him. Something Gore rarely ever managed prior to giving away Florida.
It's tough running an alien for president. Last night, finally a human being.
Praise Jesus!
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12:10:58 PM
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RadioFreeBlogistan has a top ten of convention blogs/posts. I chuckled at the idea at first, but ended up enjoying it.
It was a nice litte summary of the convention, and also a useful intro to some blogs I didn't know about.
And it helped that they picked my friend Jeralyn Merrit's TalkLeft as #1. Nice not just because I like her, but like her work. Her blog is the only one I returned to repeatedly during the week.
And they picked a nice sample of her work, so I'll just be lazy and paste the same one in:
We just got back with our double strength espresso. We're wired and ready to go. This hall is packed to the gills. There are people sitting in the stairwells. Getting out now would be next to impossible. For the first time, we bloggers are all hunched over our computers and the gabbing has stopped. The delegates are listening to the speakers.
Joe Biden's speech is too long, but they don't care. They are standing and clapping. When we think Biden, we think Rave Act and how he snuck it into the Amber child alert bill. We wouldn't support him for dogcatcher. We can't even fathom that he was almost a contender for President. But, the people here seemed to really like him.
Personally, I was only mildly interested in reactions to the speeches from the blogs, since I was watching them myself on the same medium as the crucial voters. But I was extremely interested in what it felt like to be there. I wasn't sure I would be, actually, but discovered that I was as I read her throughout the week. I didn't know I was that interested in attending, but going to her site would transport me right to the Fleet Center, and I'd be amazed and thrilled to be there and wonder why I had not gotten on a plane.
And I loved some of her asides, like the Biden thing, too. I feel the same way about him and the rave act. I like a lot of what he has to say, but he was the leader of one of the most heinous, anti-liberty pieces of legislation in years. And a true bastard about how he tried to sneak it in.
But Jeralyn was great. I really hope she goes to the R's thing in NYC. But I kinda doubt they'll let her in.
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10:35:55 AM
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