I'll openly admit to not paying much attention to the conventions. A bunch of glad handing and rah rah bullshit to gin up the base.
God only knows what the democrats will unleash on us, but at least I think we'll come away knowing who their candidate is. You had to squint hard to figure it out in Tampa. Ryan's fact challenged speech and Clint Eastwood's...well whatever it was sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Heck even Ann's speech garnered more attention.
Mitt isn't a good public speaker, we've known that for a long time. He's stiff, awkward and falls into the same trap Obama does of using large words when simpler ones could convey the message. While he did step it up from his usual stump speech offering touching personal narratives, and probably gave the best speech of his life, he still faded into the woodwork. To be fair I'm not sure what else they could have done.
Romney suffers in two ways when compared with his running mate: 1) Ryan is clearly more at ease in front of a microphone. Coaching can help, but at the end of the day you either have it or you don't. Paul does and Mitt doesn't. 2) Romney's platform has very little substance while Ryan's has been crystallized in two budget packages. Substance isn't necessarily a good thing but it fleshes the candidate out and gives us an idea of where they're coming from. Ryan's substance also gives him ideological consistency where Romney's reversals on things like abortion and gun control leave us scratching our heads.
It feeds into the larger problem of selling Romney to voters. Which version are we getting? Given his past positions, his embrace of every one of the far right's issues should fill voters with a healthy amount of skepticism.
Good luck taking a machete to that mental thicket to quote Captain Jack Sparrow.
With an awkward public presence combined with his tangled mess of policy positions, it's no wonder Mitt was relegated to the background. One of the right's favorite lines of attack on President Obama is that he "leads from behind." Well it appears they've nominated someone who campaigns from behind. How would that change if he got to the White House?
God only knows what the democrats will unleash on us, but at least I think we'll come away knowing who their candidate is. You had to squint hard to figure it out in Tampa. Ryan's fact challenged speech and Clint Eastwood's...well whatever it was sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Heck even Ann's speech garnered more attention.
Mitt isn't a good public speaker, we've known that for a long time. He's stiff, awkward and falls into the same trap Obama does of using large words when simpler ones could convey the message. While he did step it up from his usual stump speech offering touching personal narratives, and probably gave the best speech of his life, he still faded into the woodwork. To be fair I'm not sure what else they could have done.
Romney suffers in two ways when compared with his running mate: 1) Ryan is clearly more at ease in front of a microphone. Coaching can help, but at the end of the day you either have it or you don't. Paul does and Mitt doesn't. 2) Romney's platform has very little substance while Ryan's has been crystallized in two budget packages. Substance isn't necessarily a good thing but it fleshes the candidate out and gives us an idea of where they're coming from. Ryan's substance also gives him ideological consistency where Romney's reversals on things like abortion and gun control leave us scratching our heads.
It feeds into the larger problem of selling Romney to voters. Which version are we getting? Given his past positions, his embrace of every one of the far right's issues should fill voters with a healthy amount of skepticism.
Good luck taking a machete to that mental thicket to quote Captain Jack Sparrow.
With an awkward public presence combined with his tangled mess of policy positions, it's no wonder Mitt was relegated to the background. One of the right's favorite lines of attack on President Obama is that he "leads from behind." Well it appears they've nominated someone who campaigns from behind. How would that change if he got to the White House?
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