Reflections on the GOP Convention

OK, Mitt Romney isn't Ronald Reagan--at least not when it comes to speaking. But who is? Nevertheless, I thought Romney gave a good account of himself Thursday night in laying out his vision for America.

So did his running mate Paul Ryan. And so did Sen. Marco Rubio, and Gov. Susana Martinez, and former Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice and former Democrat congressman-turned Republican Artur Davis.

Each of these folks and many others gave good accounts of themselves while standing at the podium.

Even 82-year-old Clint Eastwood--without using a teleprompter--resonated with the crowd. His delivery may not have been on par with his Dirty Harry roles, but he made the audience's day with his comments on the failed policies of the Obama administration.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney

Perhaps the defining moment in Romney's speech came when he said: "This president can ask us to be patient. This president can tell us it was someone else’s fault..… But this president cannot tell us that you’re better off today than when he took office." The "excitement" of Obama’s election has subsided, Romney said, replaced by doubt and uncertainty about the economy and the federal budget.

"If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, you should feel that way now that he’s President Obama,' Romney said. "You know, there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you’ve had was the day you voted for him."

"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet," Romney continued. "My promise is to help you and your family."

The Obama White House, meanwhile, derided Romney's speech and the GOP convention in general as "angry and short on solutions."

You bet there was anger at the GOP convention. When you have some 23 million Americans out of work and a president who has played something like 125 rounds of golf you have to wonder who is more out of touch with this country.

Sen. Mitch McConnell said it best: "For four years, Barack Obama has been running from the nation's problems. He hasn't been working to earn reelection. He's been working to earn a spot on the PGA tour."

I don't think anybody expected Romney or Ryan to lay out a detailed strategy for dealing with the mammoth debt and other economic woes the U.S. faces during the convention. That is something that will be disclosed during the final two months of the campaign.  

There is little doubt that Democrats were surprised by the "bring it on" attitude of Paul Ryan when it comes to debating Medicare--often considered the third rail for Republicans when it comes to social issues.

The idea that Ryan wants to jettison the elderly over the cliff my slashing or ending Medicare is ludicrous. Voters--especially those already retired or about to retire--should be more concerned about the $716 billion Obama swiped from Medicare to fund Obamacare.

Joe Biden: Gaffe-Mesiter

I am eagerly awaiting the debate on Medicare that Ryan will have with Joe Biden down the road. Biden, America's #1 "gaffe-meister," will find Ryan a formidable opponent.  And Biden will lose.

Romney vs. Obama will be a lot more competitive. I don't see this as a repeat of the Reagan-Jimmy Carter debate which Reagan won handily with his "there you go again" comment.

Obama can talk. That's about all he does. Romney is a doer, not a talker. We will see contrasting styles in these debates. But one thing Romney has going for him is his laid back style.

Obama: "Callow, thin-skinned, arrogant"

Obama, on the other hand, according to Ed Klein's New York Times best seller "The Amateur," is "a callow, thin-skinned, arrogant president with messianic dreams of grandeur supported by a cast of true-believers, all of them united by leftist politics and an amateurish understanding of executive leadership."

What Romney will have do in the debates is expose what Rep Allen West (R-FL) says Obama is doing.

"Obama is basically feeding America a crap sandwich with a smile...and it’s very important for us to win the image war in the presidential race," West said. "Because a crap sandwich with a smile is still a crap sandwich!"

Will someone please pass the ketchup!

 

Some Early Observations About the GOP Convention.

Ann Romney

Ann Romney. What a partner she is for Mitt. Her speech Tuesday night was absolutely on target. Did you notice, she didn't mention Obama once? Didn't need to. Her job was to talk about Mitt, her husband and father of her five boys. She did that perfectly. Did you also notice that she didn't dwell on her own problems--the fact that she is battling multiple sclerosis and breast cancer? So how will the Democrats respond? Even though Obama says family members should be off limits, his attack dogs have consistently attempted to paint Ann Romney as a rich woman out of touch with Middle America. The fact is she IS Middle America. Her father was an immigrant from Wales who came to this country with nothing and rose to be mayor of his town. She did not grow up wealthy. And neither did Mitt Romney. As Ann Romney pointed out in her talk they struggled financially early on while Mitt attended both business and law school at the same time. Obama, on the other hand, got free rides and has plenty of time to indulge in recreational drugs, speak at anti-American, communist-backed protest rallies and generally goof off--which is why he has spent a lot of money to keep his college records secret.  

Chris Christie. Was this the rousing "Obama and the Democrats can go to hell' speech a lot of the delegates were expecting? No it wasn't. In weaving a lot of his personal life into his talk, Gov Christie did not follow the script many Democrats were predicting he would. His direct attack on Obama was minimal. Instead of the brash, no-holds-barred verbal punch-fest, Christie spent most of the time talking about being a Republican governor in a state controlled predominately by Democrats. One area where he fell a bit short, I thought, was his rather feeble attempt to sell Romney. His first mention of the Republican presidential nominee didn't come until some 15 minutes into his speech. Instead, he spent a lot of time talking about the direction the Republican party should be taking in the future. It was almost as if he were setting himself up to run in 2016. Maybe he was.

LIBERAL MEDIA COVERAGE. In a word, the left-leaning mainstream media has done a mendacious job of covering the GOP convention.  One of the left's favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and most likely racist. I hope you weren't watching MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention Tuesday night. If you were you might be inclined to believe those assertions, because missing from the coverage was nearly every ethnic minority that spoke during Tuesday’s festivities. But in case you were watching MSNBC and missed some of the best speeches here are what a few of these diverse Republicans had to say.

Mia Love

MIA LOVE. Who is Mia Love? She is a 36-year-old black Mormon congressional candidate, exploded onto the national stage with her speech at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night. Because nobody really knew who Mia Love was her name topped all others in Google searches Wednesday. Love is running against incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson (D) in Utah’s newly formed 4th district and if she wins in November, she will become the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. Tuesday evening she talked about how her parents came to the United States from Haiti with "$10 in their pockets and a hope that the America they heard about really did exist." She said Obama was a president who didn't value entrepreneurship and added: "Mr. President, I'm here to tell you that the American people are awake, and we aren't buying what you're selling in 2012." She described Obama's vision for the country as a "divided one" that is "pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender and social status." 

Artur Davis

ARTUR DAVIS. Here is how petty the My Socialist NBC network (otherwise known as MSNBC) is. It declined to cover the rousing speech by former Alabama Democrat Rep. Artur Davis, who delivered one of the nominating speeches for Barak Obama at the 2008 Democrat convention. In 2010, Davis had seen enough and switched parties. "The Democrats' ads convince me that Gov. Romney can't sing, but his record convinces me he knows how to lead, and I think you know which skill we need more," Davis told the audience Tuesday night. He accused Obama of bamboozling voters four years ago with "flowery words" and charged that the incumbent has lost the "halo" his supporters thought he had in 2008. "America is a land of second chances, and I gather in this close race you have room for the estimated 6 million of us who know we got it wrong in 2008 and who want to fix it," Davis told the delegates.

Nikki Haley

NIKKI HALEY. The Republican Governor of South Carolina and the daughter of Indian immigrants delivered a blistering speech condemning Obama. "Don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business," Haley said, referring to Obama's "you didn't build that" remark a several weeks ago. "My parents started a business out of the living room of our home and, 30-plus years later, it was a multimillion dollar company," she said. "But there wasn't a single day that was easy and there wasn't a single day my Mom and Dad didn't put everything they had into making that business a success. So, President Obama, with all due respect, don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business." Haley then accused the Obama administration of launching an all-out assault on her state. "The hardest part of my job continues to be this federal government, this administration and this president," Haley said, going on to say that "Obama will do everything he can to stand in your way," even if you play by the rules."

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. Beyond the weird clothing and hats that seems to have become de rigueur at American political conventions in the past few decades, I agree with House Speaker John Boehner: these things should be shorter. “I’m not sure that having a four-day convention, for the future, makes a lot of sense,” Boehner said at a luncheon hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. He also suggested that the party platform should be cut down to one page. “Anybody read the party platform?” he asked. "I’ve never met anybody who has."

AMEN

Did He or Didn't He? Here's an Idea: Ask the IRS!

Forgive me if this sounds a bit simplistic, but with "Dirty" Harry Reid charging that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a tax cheat couldn't this be resolved if someone were to ask the IRS if it is preparing a tax evasion case against the former Massachusetts governor?

I mean if Romney hasn't paid any income taxes for the past 10 years, as Dirty Harry suggests, wouldn't that qualify for some prison time? Isn't that the way the Feds got Al Capone in Chicago?

But wait, didn't Tim Geithner fail to pay taxes also? But, of course, he is a Democrat and Obama minion, so I guess that's OK. Right Harry?

During several years, Treasury secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner failed to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes totaling some $26,000, even though he was advised by his employer, the International Monetary Fund, to do so. Instead he signed an agreement indicating that he understood that such payments were his responsibility and received extra pay from his employer specifically for that purpose.

Mr. Geithner "came clean" only when he was caught, first by an IRS audit that found he owed Social Security taxes for 2003 and 2004 and then when additional tax liabilities for 2001 and 2002 were discovered after his nomination as Treasury Secretary.

So, if Mitt Romney has, like Geithner, failed to pay taxes, why wouldn't an IRS audit indicate that?

The answer is quite likely that the IRS has never done such an audit and that Romney has indeed paid his taxes for the past 10 years.

Of course, this doesn't stop the Chicago political mafia led by David Axelrod and the Chick-fil-A  hating Mayor Rahm Emanuel from slinging slime at Romney.

Hey, that's Chicago politics. It's the way the game is played in the Windy City and its where our feckless leader in the White House learned the rules.

Don't think the filthy tactics are finished with the Dirty Harry rant in the Senate, either. The Obama/Axelrod mafia has just begun its descent into the dung heap that is Chicago politics.

As a general assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune in the 1970s I witnessed my share of the corruption that has long been a trademark of Chicago's Democratic machine.

A recent report by the Political Science Department of the University of Illinois revealed that Chicago is Number 1 in public corruption while the State of Illinois is ranked Number 3 so far as corrupt states go.  The report said that since 1976 - federal prosecutors rung up a total of 1,531 public corruption convictions in the Northern District of Illinois. The 1,828 total convictions for Illinois lagged only behind California and New York.

Since the 1970s, four of Illinois’ seven governors have been convicted (Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich) of corruption. In addition, dozens of Chicago alderman and other city and county public officials have been found guilty.

Corruption is intertwined with Chicago city politics, the report said, adding that about a third of sitting alderman since 1973 have been corrupt and the city has averaged 51 public corruption convictions each year since 1976.

With this kind of pedigree is anybody surprised then that the Obama campaign is pulling out all the stops to smear Gov. Romney and anybody who supports him?

Is it any wonder that the Obama campaign is dead set against any kind of voter identification law? After all, while Chicago may not be the home of AMCTV's the "Walking Dead" it has always been the home of the "Voting Dead."

Bringing the dead from their graves to support Chicago's Democratic Machine would be more difficult if they had to show voter IDs. And of course, the same can be said for the millions of illegal aliens who show up at the polls to vote for the Democrat party candidates--not to mention those who vote multiple times.

What we are seeing in the Obama administration is the Chicago-ization of national politics.

Dirty Harry Reid's despicable performance in the Senate last week reminded me of watching a Chicago City Council meeting in full swing--you don't want to wear clean clothing in that noble chamber when the mud-slinging starts.

When Barack Obama was elected President he promised there would be no "politics as usual." He was right. Instead we are getting politics at its worst--a huge dose of political corruption, chicanery and thievery courtesy of Chicago's Democratic crime family of which Obama is an offspring.