The Republican National Convention

Well they are finally striking the circus tents in Tampa, as the Republican Convention comes to a close. I would like to thank Hurricane Issac for making it one day shorter, (who says God doesn't like Democrats). I must admit it was painful to watch the three day Land of the Lost marathon, but let me take a stab at what I took away from this conservative meeting of the minds.

First, all their speakers were scheduled by a schizophrenic. If they wanted to muddle their messages they couldn't have done a better job. Tuesday Anne Romney wanted to tell us about love, followed by Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) who said screw love, it's about respect. Wednesday V.P. pick Paul Ryan (R-WI) took to the stage and bold faced lied to the country for 30 minutes, quite the auspicious start for his first big prime time speech. Then Mitt Romney tried to give us the warm fuzzes by trying to tell us he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but not before a bizarre attempt at improv by Clint Eastwood.

Generally a national party convention is used to prop up their choice for president in this case Mitt Romney, instead we got a long line of auditions for 2016. From Christie to Rubio and everyone in between, speaker after speaker told their own political stories, ending and by the way, vote for Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan. There was the usual pining about God, guns, and government, and a fairly noble attempt to humanize Romney for the electorate, but there is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. A noticeable increase in the invocation of God, which made some speeches sound like they were at a revival, as opposed to a convention.

In a nutshell, they tried very hard to soften the sharp edges of what they really believe, but as far as independents are concerned, I honestly don't know if they swayed anyone from the middle. Of course when you have Lyin Ryan telling you what you want to hear, minus a little thing called FACTS, you never know. I have never heard a more blatant distortion of the truth in my life than what I listened to from Paul Ryan Wednesday night. Republicans always play fast and loose with the facts, but this was absolutely ridiculous, not to mention criminal in its execution.

The ongoing overriding theme of the convention "We Did Build That" was based on a quote from President Obama they took out of context. I suppose desperate times, need desperate measures. They beat our poor founding fathers to death. They were great men, but they've been dead for over 200 years, and when they formed our perfect union, slavery was legal, women's suffrage was a pipe dream, and only rich, white, land owners got to vote, can't you see the appeal? They want to strip women's rights, hamper voting with laws in search of a problem, and take us back to when wifey was chained to the stove, and minorities knew their place. Their slogan is "We Believe In America", but just what kind of America do they believe in? No place I want to live I can tell you.