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SHOT FROM INSIDE THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
No, I’m not in Minnesota for the Republican National Convention. I received blogger credentials and could have gone, but unfortunately have too much going on here at home.
That said, I have plenty of friends and associates who are in St. Paul, Minn. for next week’s big convention and one of them sent me the above photo from inside the Xcel Energy Center.
As you can see, the setup looks like its coming together and the stage is much more humble than the grandiose spectacle that the Democrats unfurled this week in Denver. Especially that wannabe-Messiah setup at Invesco Field last night where Barack Obama did everything but ascend from the Heavens.
So it’s nice to see this event will be about nominee John McCain more than it is about pomp.
Even so, with Hurricane Gustav threatening to pound the Gulf Coast and President Bush scheduled to speak Monday night, it’s possible that things may not go as planned and the event could be delayed.
There is one hurricane however that won’t stall the convention: Hurricane Sarah. As in McCain’s newly-named running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has taken the nation by storm today.
Please, guy. Let’s break down the many complex layers of sadness that compose this post.
1) The insecure overcompensation of reassuring your many readers that, “oh, yeah I could have gone to the convention nobigdeal.” Seeing as that you’re a “political blogger,” most people would think that you’d go and oh, I don’t know, blog the third largest political even that will happen this year?
2) What that picture shows is likely an incomplete set. If that’s the finished setup, the right phrases would be something more along the lines of “boring” or “poor design,” not humble. HUMBLE?? You must be kidding to refer to anything associated with a man who owns more than five houses as “humble.”
3) Palin’s selection as a vice presidential candidate is going to be a nightmare. It invites far more criticism from all sides than it encourages any kind of confidence in McCain’s political judgement. If anything, it’s likely to anger southern conservatives—McCain has chosen to court Dems who are hanging on to Clinton, rather than please the religious or conservative heart of the Republican party. When you claim that Palin has “taken the nation by storm,” you only prove how unwilling you are to look at anything objectively and rationally.
Oh, and McCain is 73 and has had 4 recurring incidents of cancer, while Palin has less than 1 term of gubernatorial experience, and 0 experience doing anything close to running the United States. Sounds like a great backup president to me!
Is it just me, or did the Barakopolis, at the windows in the center, look a bit like a stylized version of the white house, from the perspective of the Rose Garden? Another little bit of arrogance.
I am glad the Republicans are going straight forward and not for bling. First thing I noticed too. Let’s focus on message, not massage.
What a great day today.
Go McCain – Palin!
Adam – I’m a little concerned. The Democratic Presidential candidate was, four years ago, still warming a seat in the Illinois State Senate, and has never served in an executive office in the course of his political career.
Doesn’t this lack of experience call into question his fitness to be President? Or is there a double-standard rule that I’m violating.
Earl — Obama is at the top of the ticket, Palin is not. Big difference.
So in other words, Obama’s shortcomings are an immediate problem, but Palin is someone who can, as she has done already, learn the ropes?
Let them mock and spin … it’ll be interesting to see her lock horns with Biden.
when you are running for president, images redolent of the president’s house hardly seem inappropriate- except, perhaps, among those who don’t want to see a given candidate there in any circumstance. Declaring the bias up front would make the argument more persuasive.
As far as the set goes, it’s not done yet. Look around- there’s RNC images of the sheer excess of the GOP podium. You can only put out so many flags before it starts looking ridiculous.
And we haven’t gotten at all to Sarah Palin, whose homophobia is surely what drew Scoop Doggy to her side.
About that set again….. go back and look at the set up where Ronald Reagan accepted his nomination. That was a temple too. And yeah, I thought it looked like the White House not a temple, unless Bush made the White House into a temple. Everything in America is 1984 anyway now, so mayb e the White House is a temple. Does that make Bush God?
Adam,
Yes, Obama is at the top of the ticket while Palin is not. However, Obama made it to the top of the ticket because people actually voted for him. Palin made it to the bottom of her ticket because McCain appointed her. Palin never would have survived had she run in the GOP primaries earlier this year.
It will be very interesting listening to Republicans talk about ending affirmative action at their convention because that’s exactly what Palin’s selection reeks of.