#RNC08 Thread

**drmomentum**[$] · #1 09-03-2008, 10:53 PM

Slamming and applauding. Let's here it.

Romney perhaps proved why he didn't make VP. He thinks Washington is liberal and just asked the Republicans to throw out the liberals. Huh?

Maggie wouldn't let me listen to the rest of it.

Also, he sounded like he wanted to turn people against the Northeast. Yay -- bring the country together!

Huckabee started out a little more classy, but quickly attacked gay marriage. Good to know we're focused on the country's problems. We dodged a bullet there. Oh, and apparently the press are the new communists/terrorists.

-JP

**theworm**[$] · #2 09-03-2008, 11:39 PM

I really need Rudy to just shut up and go away.
I think I need to get away from the TV now.

brian_igo · #3 09-04-2008, 12:28 AM

This is going to be a minority opinion, perhaps, but Palin is committing political hari-kari with her speech.

She needs to be establishing herself as a sober, competent and capable person to be next in line to the presidency. She already has the base locked up and the RNC can line up attack dogs 20 hours a day. She needs to convince undecideds and independents that she's qualified to be the President of the United States. Instead she's behaving like some party hack.

This was her first and last chance to define how she's going to be treated for the rest of the race. If she had come out and spoken seriously about the problems facing America and how McCain was the best candidate to solve them, it would have set a tone that would make it much harder to question her qualifications when she does press conferences and debates. Instead she's presenting herself as another national-level politician, but she's not. She still has all of the problems she had going into this speech, only now they're going to be even more magnified than before.

Compare this with Obama's speech. The big questions he had going in was that he didn't define what change meant and he was a cupcake. So detail and strength became the central themes of his speech, and you haven't heard anything about those issues since. Palin didn't cover any of her weaknesses. She gave a standard pitbull VP speech, but she didn't show why she should be trusted for the job.

Kerry tried this four years ago, to pretend that his negatives didn't exist, and it killed him. It will take a couple of weeks, but I think the same thing will happen to Palin.

cristina1 · #4 09-04-2008, 12:58 AM

Ugh, what happened to the theme from Monday night that we have to put aside our differences because we're all Americans?

Honestly, that was one of the most hateful, vicious speeches that I had heard. She started punching and wouldn't let up. I was really hoping for more from her, but I think she showed her true colors tonight. She's one of the "good old boys" that she claims to be so against.

**drmomentum**[$] · #5 09-04-2008, 01:06 AM

Palin, Queen of Snark.

You can tell they really tinkered with that speech. None of the feeling of her intro on Friday was there. Sadly, there were moments you could tell they said "here's the part where we make her seem smart." I'm sure she must have smarts on her own; why do they have to do that to her?

I can't say I liked her going into this, but I was more bored than anything else. I expected to be surprised, but she came off like a somewhat watered down Ann Coulter, with kids.

**theworm**[$] · #6 09-04-2008, 09:54 AM

There were some very good lines in her speech. Whoever wrote it has some skill, but mostly what I remember is the sarcasm and the attacks.

**hadassahchana**[$] · #7 09-04-2008, 10:22 AM

I didn't watch it last night. Youd think that I would know better, but no. I am sitting here listening to Palin's speech and just fuming! Using her handicapped child- who will be trotted back home while she is out campagining. Showing off Bristol and the knock-er. WTF?

**Prepoia**[$] · #8 09-04-2008, 10:31 AM

It seemed to me to be the same speech she gave last week with snarks inserted along with a bunch of global terminology to broaden our perceived perception that she is weak in global affairs.

Some of the snarks were funny, some untrue, and some snarky. (The same as it is on both sides of parties)

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #9 09-04-2008, 11:06 AM

In case you thought it was just you being "blinded by the white" while watching the RNC on your TV...

Quote:

According to polls of delegates conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, 93 percent of the Republican delegates are white (compared with 85 percent in 2004 and 89 percent in 2000), while 5 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. The Democratic delegate pool in Denver, according to the survey, was 65 percent white, 23 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic, roughly the same as at other recent Democratic conventions.

“The Republicans,” Mr. Warfield said, “trust delegates to represent the interests of all people more than Democrats do with their quotas.”

Nice theory, but while I can try really really really hard to represent black Americans' interests and can even claim to have some inside knowledge because I'm married to one, experience has taught me it's not the same as having people from minority groups in the room and participating. The RNC seems to be solidly going back to their white Christian male base.

**mtomm**[$] · #10 09-04-2008, 12:28 PM

I thought Hispanics were flocking to the Republican party. If they are they surely weren't represented at the convention.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #11 09-04-2008, 06:23 PM

NYC Community Organizers take exception to Palin and Giuliani's dismissive references to their careers

Quote:

Richard R. Buery, Jr., Executive Director of Groundwork, Inc said

“Community organizing is the Montgomery bus boycott, the march on Selma and 3000 Nehemiah homes in Brooklyn. Community organizers are hardworking, underpaid people who help their neighbors.”

(disclosure: As an MSW student, my concentrations were Admin and Community Organizing.)

**drmomentum**[$] · #12 09-04-2008, 06:29 PM

From Mudflats, an Alaska blog:

Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was governor.

**lynnzop**[$] · #13 09-04-2008, 06:35 PM

Quote:

drmomentum said

From Mudflats, an Alaska blog:

Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was governor.

**drmomentum**[$] · #14 09-04-2008, 06:37 PM

Looks like we finally have a definition for the right-wing slam term "elitist."

Quote:

"Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

Other Democrats have charged that the Republican campaign to paint the Illinois senator as an “elitist” is racially charged, and accused them of using code words for “uppity” without using the word itself.

At least they're being more honest about the racial overtones now. Feeling bold after last night's speech, are we?

-JP

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #15 09-04-2008, 06:47 PM

Quote:

drmomentum said

From Mudflats, an Alaska blog:

Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was governor.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #16 09-04-2008, 06:55 PM

"Uppity." Whoa yeah, that's got a racial charge to it.

**drmomentum**[$] · #17 09-04-2008, 07:32 PM

Ya think?

*emeleel* · #18 09-04-2008, 11:19 PM

"Uppity" is a racial slur?!

Not down here it ain't. Anyone of any color can be uppity. I know of *plenty* of uppity white folks. It has to do with general attitude, not attitude you're not "allowed" to have because of your skin tone.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #19 09-05-2008, 08:24 AM

I wouldn't say it has quite the force of a "slur," and y'all may be using it differently now, but the phrase came from masters in slave states who used it to refer to black slaves who didn't know their place. I've personally never seen or heard the word "uppity" used without the word "negro" following it, but I've only seen it/heard it in books or dramas/documentaries of or about the period. It could be like some of those other words we've talked about in the past - we don't know the origins and don't realize what an insult a term is because of it.

edited to add: Just tried to track the etymology, went to Merriam-Webster and followed a link there to Britannica.com where the first entry that pops up from a search of just the word "uppity" is the entry on the Klu Klux Clan.

realtraveller · #20 09-05-2008, 08:45 AM

Here's something that just occurred to me as I heard the men who were imprisoned with McCain at the Hanoi Hilton. They have remained friends for all these years and came to the RNC to support him. They knew him before he had political ambitions and they trust and yes, love him.

It occurred to me that we have never heard from any friends of Obama. Just plain friends. Not advisors, not people he worked with, just friends. Didn't he keep any friends from law school or high school or from the neighborhood, from his (now-ex) church? Odd.

**Prepoia**[$] · #21 09-05-2008, 09:14 AM

It means something positive with McCain; however, not having his friends endorse him or even not having a lot of friends is not a negative for Obama. Oftentimes, intense friendships are formed and kept because of the intense previous relationship.

**mtomm**[$] · #22 09-05-2008, 11:34 AM

Quote:

realtraveller said

Here's something that just occurred to me as I heard the men who were imprisoned with McCain at the Hanoi Hilton. They have remained friends for all these years and came to the RNC to support him. They knew him before he had political ambitions and they trust and yes, love him.

It occurred to me that we have never heard from any friends of Obama. Just plain friends. Not advisors, not people he worked with, just friends. Didn't he keep any friends from law school or high school or from the neighborhood, from his (now-ex) church? Odd.

Oh, man, I'd be in huge trouble! I better not run for any office if this is an indication of being qualified.