GOP Convention Day 3 Review

Last night was the final night of the GOP Convention. Let’s begin by stating that everything before 10pm was rather boring, sappy and/or completely uninteresting. About the only thing to be learned of interest is that Mitt Romney is cheap, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows anything about the self made rich. There were a bunch of sob stories from people who had difficult things happen to them and were helped by Mitt and Ann Romney. That’s all very nice and well, but did we need to hear these deeply personal stories? There are some things that a better off left a personal memory rather than fodder for a Presidential campaign.

Getting to the prime time portion of the evening, let’s start off with Clint Eastwood’s awful and offensive performance. This is the grand mystery speaker people have been speculating about all week, it’s a shame Romney couldn’t have done better. Eastwood talked to an empty chair that represented Obama. He made sex jokes and demeaned the office of the President. It was a wholly disgusting performance that placed a dark cloud over the whole evening. How could the Romney team be so foolish? Why do Republicans feel the need to trot out Hollywood celebrities, as though we can’t win on our own merits?

Sen. Marco Rubio gave a very fine speech, he admittedly looked better considering his horrible lead in. I was originally in the Rubio for VP camp. I now see the error of my ways. Rubio gave a good speech but he was nowhere near as good as Paul Ryan. He did however touch on the issue of faith, which is something that has been missing this whole week. We must never forget that salvation isn’t to be found in politics or government, it’s to be found in Jesus Christ alone. It’s a shame that we’ve gotten to the point in the GOP where we’re to afraid to even mention that, lest the clowns in the media attack us. Rubio at least touched on the issue, to his credit.

On to the big speech. Romney gave a very good performance. He had two goals last night, one of which he achieved and the other he didn’t. His first goal was to introduce himself to the country and tell us about his life, family and outlook. In that Romney was masterful, much to everyone’s surprise. He told us about how he loved his wife and children, how he would give anything to have his young boys back again. That spoke to a lot of the country, it humanized him. He spoke about the possibility of success in America, he was surprisingly nationalistic. He offered a fine contrast between himself and ‘you didn’t build that’, globalist Obama.

His second goal  last night was to lay out his vision for the future. He did that on some level, but it was largely bullet points without detail. I was looking for a little more substance on his plan for the future. This was an opportunity to lay out the plan before the American people and show them the sharp contrast between his vision for the future and Obama’s last four years. Instead of doing this, Romney focused on love of country while more or less arguing that it’s okay to make a change. This was an opportunity lost as far as I’m concerned even though he hit a home run in his introductions.

The speech deserves a B. It was well delivered, he connected with the audience and the public like he’s never done before. He was up front, concise. Romney avoided soaring rhetoric and at one point attacked Obama’s absurd soaring rhetoric that the oceans won’t rise because he’s President. Romney displayed a love of country and optimism for our future and in the American worker. But the glaring error last night was the lack of detain concerning his vision for the future. We conservatives should be concerned because he seemed to suggest that Obama’s plan could have worked but didn’t. Paul Ryan argued last night that Obama’s plan never could have worked, suddenly the top of the ticket thinks it could have. That’s concerning. Overall though the speech was fine and I predict a 2 point bump in the polls.