Republican Convention ’12: De-elect Obama

Yo, I’m a Republican. I don’t mind.

His Mittness is a sturdy Chevy. Oldsmobile? Make that a Ford, which took no government bailout. But wait, Mitt’s father George Romney ran the late great American Motors, and GM is now owned by Barack Obama. OK, you know what I mean. Obama ’08 was a rocket to the moon. No rockets in ’12 here, even to low earth orbit. And GM don’t make Oldsmobiles no more. [Not Obama’s fault.]

—-Romney’s acceptance speech was prose, not poetry. The difference in worldview with President Obama is simple:

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise…is to help you and your family.

That’s it. Although I dig dolphins as much as the next guy, I’ve always rooted for the fisherman and his family. And StarKist really blows since they made it 100% dolphin free, dunno what’s up with that. It tasted a lot better with the dolphin in it.

—I’ve caught a lot of the GOP convention on the way home from work. On NPR. Absolutely stellar job.

Journalism should be transparent—and NPR made explicit note of the fact that CNN was skipping all the boring speeches from people who know and admire Mitt Romney. The people who’ve seen him in real life and have been helped by and been inspired by him. The part, the heart the polls say he’s missing.

And when it came to injecting some op-ed [“balanced” by the very good righty Matthew Continetti] the estimable EJ Dionne properly pissed on the flames of Romney enthusiasm, dampening the rally campfire a bit.

Which was cool, and fair. NPR did the best job of reporting a live event I’ve seen/heard for years. Makes me almost not want to cut their funding.

—For Fox News haters, what can I say but that they played it straight again, with Bret Baier and the awesome-in-all-female-and-human-respects Megyn Kelly doing the anchoring. But the best part was that Fox handed the postgame show over not to GOP sycophants but to Greta Van Susteren, who is scrupulously fair if not tough. Her first question to first guest Gov. Bob McDonnell [R-VA] was about Romney’s claim to have a “plan” for 13 million jobs.

I wrote Greta a fan letter once on her fairness and preparedness. She wrote back crediting her staff. Yes, she can’t scorch the GOP earth over at Fox News. But she does A-OK.

—Did Mitt Romney know the words to the second verse of “America the Beautiful?” Or were they on the teleprompter? Frankly I don’t care—he was mouthing them and I appreciate the effort.

—Cuban American Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida echoed Antonin Scalia, that our ancestors didn’t leave Europe just make America European. Rubio one-upped it:

“These are the ideas that people come to America to get away from.”

That’s just a fact, Jack.

Also:

“Hope and Change has become Divide and Conquer.”

This is my biggest brief against Barack Obama. Like many GOPers who lost in 1996 and in 2008, it just didn’t seem like a threat to the republic or the end of the world. Bill Clinton was a competent president, Barack Obama no demonstrably worse than the cranky and mercurial McCain. No Big Deal.

But the greatest promise of an Obama presidency was to heal us; its biggest failure is that it has done anything and everything but heal us.

This experiment has failed. Beyond the failures of the economy and the strong-arming of social issues, this president has pushed us apart, not pulled us together. No two-term president in recent history has won re-election by a smaller margin than his first time around. If re-elected atall, President Obama will surely win by a smaller margin than ’08 and with little in the way of congressional coattails, further splitting us along majoritarian lines, 51% of us against the other 49.

On the rest, I had a bunch of uncontentious tidbits to offer, that

—Ann Romney will make a good First Lady if she doesn’t try to shtup Sloppy Joes made of cabbage upon our children.

Cabbage. That’s a violation.

—Paul Ryan adds to the ticket a younger-generation sharpness and sinew that Marco Rubio does not. Rubio still seems like a kid. A good kid. But don’t muck with Paul Mucking Ryan.

Son of Satan.

—Gov. Susana Martinez [R-NM]. A prosecutor who ran afoul of her boss, the DA. Ran against him and “beat him in a landslide.” Don’t muck with Martinez either.

—If any American besides Joe Biden is allowed to dodder and stumble his way through a ramble, it’s Clint Eastwood. It was bizarre, but cool because he still scored his points.

And it sounded even more bizarre over the radio, oh yeah it did.

—Condi Rice. It’s all been said already, but if I had to make a choice between you and me for any job in this world, I’d hire her.

—On Greta’s postgame show, ABC News’ Rick Klein got it, that the theme that must be sounded as Romney asks for America’s vote to de-elect Barack Obama: Not anger, but sadness and regret.

It would have been good for America if it had worked out, but it hasn’t.

“Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether
you’re libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should
not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we
got to let them go.”

This part, even the doddering Clint Eastwood easily got right. It’s with great regret, not joy, that we must fire Barack Obama.

Tom Van Dyke

Tom Van Dyke, businessman, musician, bon vivant and game-show champ (The Joker's Wild, and Win Ben Stein's Money), knows lots of stuff, although not quite everything yet. A past contributor to The American Spectator Online, the late great Reform Club blog, and currently on religion and the American Founding at American Creation, TVD continues to write on matters of both great and small importance from his ranch type style tract house high on a hill above Los Angeles.

5 Comments

  1. I didn’t vote for Obama to be healed. It’s the Presidency, not a revival. I’ll vote for the man who was at the helm when American capitalism was saved, when US heavy industry was saved, when the first steps towards a more rational health system were passed into law. I’ll vote for the man who gave the order to kill Bin Laden. The other choice, Romney, is a sociopath who can’t tell a consistent lie. Nobody knows what he thinks our believes other than he knows the Presidency is his by birth right since he has always had everything he wanted in life handed to him. This election cycle is the first time in his life he has heard the word no. Has anyone told Romney that he can’t out lolsource the country? And Ryan, what a hypocritical spooge stain.

  2. Romney’s speech was quite good. The autobiography served a dual function of “humanizing” him and setting up the best line of the speech, reminding us of candidate Obama’s promises “to begin to slow the rise of the oceans” and “to heal the planet,” before looking directly into the camera and saying, “My promise is to help you and your family.” That connected with me in a big way. The whole thing rang true: Obama’s not a bad guy, but I get the feeling Obama’s too busy with big, abstract ideas. How else do you explain a health care reform that tries a little of everything… except training new doctors to carry any of it out? I get the feeling he cares more that it is “historic,” and less about whether it is practical.

    More than ever, Romney’s my man. Nothing personal against Obama. Maybe his ideas would have even worked in other circumstances. But they haven’t for me or my family. We’re excited to see what Mitt can do.

  3. George Romney headed American Motors which eventually went under, although it pioneered domestic compact cars. Does that affect your scenario?

    • I was just riffing, but thx for the catch. Hopefully I’ve rewritten my way out of this. Cheers.

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