I only hear the speeches and worse, hear them on NPR. There, commentators tell you after a speech what deprecatory things you should have thought in case you didn’t think them. We tuned in last evening just as Clint Eastwood began speaking. We didn’t know then what is evident here that I watched this morning, the stage business with the empty chair. I also know this morning, from reading the news, that the response is mixed on Eastwood’s speech, but I tell you that from out here, he stole the stage last night by saying a few simple things and saying them simply. “You own this country!” Is it just a tell on me, an awful simplicity on my part, that all of the carefully written speeches given last evening, that line of Eastwood’s and the response of the crowd was all I remembered when I woke up this morning.
I heard Mitt Romney accept the nomination for president last evening. I thought he delivered a fine speech and Marco Rubio spoke well when introducing him. They, everyone I heard over the last few days, sounded grand, mostly smooth, well rehearsed, all they should be and all I expect and therefore wholly unmemorable. The guy who bumbled a little, sounded like my uncle saying what he would like to say to the president if he ever could; that I remember. Corny? Sure enough, American corn right through and welcome at the table. I read someone this morning who said it was a reminder of the less-scripted conventions of fifty years back and I believe it. Here’s to old-fashioned conventions.
August 31st, 2012 | 8:59 am
I checked in to say something about last night. It was corny and all that. But I think it might have also been cagey and will help Romney establish himself as a real guy. So rather than post I’ll mostly echo Kate.
August 31st, 2012 | 9:07 am
My husband thought it had to have been rehearsed very carefully. No one can seem that sincere, off-the-cuff, wholly real without a whole lot of preparation was his take. Maybe he’s right and maybe you’re right, Peter, but if so, for goodness’ sake, I hope the Romney campaign packages it and puts it on the road. In moderation, though. It was refreshing, but too much would make it another political convention and therefore tiresome.
August 31st, 2012 | 9:23 am
Kate, Clint was corny. Even more, he was at times bumbling, meandering, off color, and inappropriate. Was that schtick the best intro for Rubio, and in turn for Romney? I don’t know, and it probably doesn’t matter. It was a sideshow.
But as a sideshow, Clint’s routine pointed to something about the president that is rarely said. In fact, at one point he stated it outright–something like, “Obama may be a nice guy–well maybe he’s not that nice of a guy…”
When Invisible Obama responded that Clint (and Romney too) do something to himself that it is impossible to do, I think he was on to something about the president. Is the president in actuality a mean, petty, sniping, vulgar…in a word, ridiculous man? Is he presidential?
This inference regarding the president’s character while talking to an empty chair might very well have provided the most effective (if corny) contrast to the virtues that the convention highlighted in Romney’s character.
Perhaps Clint opened up a crack on the president’s public persona.
August 31st, 2012 | 9:48 am
John, exactly, that’s exactly what he did and was what I liked about the Eastwood ramble. Truly, he was just like my Uncle Bob after dinner, commenting on the news and I’ll bet lots of people have an Uncle Bob. What politician could do that sort of thing? Well, Joe Biden these days: “Kind of a grin with a body behind it.” (Do you think that will stick?) But what politician could say those things without looking ridiculous? Even the most oblique joke by Romney at the president’s expense is flagged as “mean” and invites public contempt from the press? Certainly no Republican pol could be so unstatesmanlike, since in politics today blunt honesty is a gaffe. Eastwood is no comic, but his rough humor made a point that all of us who have not loved Mr. Obama blindly see about him.
August 31st, 2012 | 10:35 am
In keeping with another important theme of the evening (and the convention) i was hoping he would add “Hacer mi dia” …. for unrelated reasons i would not have recommended “poseemos este país”
August 31st, 2012 | 11:19 am
John, I shared your impressions of the Clint speech–it was weird, but that off-color stuff about the president repeatedly suggesting that he and Romney do impossible things to themselves was so outrageous that it made me wonder if there was something true in it. After all the work done last night to establish the character of Romney the good man, the pastor, the father, the loving neighbor, etc.–and I agree with David Brooks that these were, for me, the real high points of the convention–Clint’s speech really did introduce the idea that maybe likeable Obama isn’t actually so noble, isn’t so well-liked by those who work closely with him. This suggests an interesting line of attack or comparison that might be worth pursuing in the next wave of ads.
I’ll also admit, however, that I literally fell asleep during Romney’s acceptance speech. There were other contributing circumstances–it’s been a long week due to Isaac and the APSA debacle, and yesterday was a very long first day of class–but still, I wanted to like the speech, and just…couldn’t. His delivery is so stiff, and his speech was sort of pandering. Nothing is worse than a presidential candidate who’s clearly trying to make a connection with his audience, and failing. And that’s what the speech was to me. What I’m taking away from the convention is that Romney just isn’t able to persuade us he’s likeable. This might be to his credit, and certainly fits the claim of so many, most prominently Paul Ryan, that he’s a good man. Anyway, the job of making Romney likeable (to voters who must otherwise be trusted to do their partisan duty and vote for a candidate they don’t really like) must fall to those who have known him well through the years. Mitt can just reassure us that he is prepared to lead, that Obama hasn’t done so, and thus reiterate the stark choice between the two candidates. I thought the line about lawyer presidents was his best (before I fell asleep). Emphasis on his ability to take action, to act with confidence in the face of risk and be a ‘manly man’ (without necessarily calling it that might be enough.
On a completely different and very superficial note, did anyone else notice the similarities between the young Mitt and the actor Matthew Fox? (i.e. Jack Shepherd on LOST) I’m not sure what could be done with that, but I can say that as a youngish voter who doesn’t think very much about politics and watches too much TV, LOST is the most prominent consideration or investigation of man as political animal that I can recall in contemporary culture, and Jack Shepherd’s live together or die alone speech could be a starting point for rediscovering the nobility of politics. So some sort of subtle appeal to the similarities between Jack Shepherd the leader and Mitt Romney the leader might be worth considering. Just a thought.
August 31st, 2012 | 12:10 pm
The convention might be telling us that the GOP is less and less the home of conservatives and more the home of crony-capitalist statists and Democrats who recognize just how radical our Marxist president and the Democrat elite are. I remember, with a smile, just how upset and out of sorts some people got when I referred to him as a “Kenyan Marxist” almost four years ago.
August 31st, 2012 | 12:19 pm
Ceaser, How about this? “Cuando alguien no cumple su trabajo, hay que dejarlo que se vaya.”
http://www.animalpolitico.com/2012/08/el-encontronazo-clint-eastwood-obama-por-acto-de-romney/
August 31st, 2012 | 1:19 pm
The Romney speech was boring and I literally did fall asleep. It wasn’t FOR me, though. Clint, I think, did more harm than good. Rubio is a real pro, and showed himself better than Christie and more at ease than Ryan, if you want to give American Idol notes.
August 31st, 2012 | 2:02 pm
We’ll see about Clint, I suppose. I caught this positive spin in passing: http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/31/three-reasons-clint-eastwood-worked-for-republicans/
August 31st, 2012 | 2:08 pm
Not quite sure how Clint could possibly have hurt. I didn’t see him last night, but watched it this AM due to all the buzz. I think that he, along with Christie, have whatever “it” is that commands respect among a pretty wide swath of the public. Those mocking him aren’t in the persuadables anyway. I bet he was pretty darn effective among reaching those who are. In fact, I bet the ridiculing of him is about the worst thing the commentariat could be doing…
August 31st, 2012 | 2:26 pm
Ramsey, that’s what coffee’s for. Or, since night-time, Bourbon. Or tobacco. Placing your bare feet on ice also helps.
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