The Republican National Convention is over and the GOP ticket is set.
On a night that included speeches from Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Newt and Calista Gingrich, Mitt Romney accepted his party’s nomination for President of the United States.
“Americans have a choice,” Romney said to the supportive delegates. “To make that choice, you need to know more about me and about where I will lead our country.”
Initial reaction has been tepid, with many saying Romney fell very short of his task to engage the American public. Granted, he spoke more than usual about his personal background, but he did very little to spell out to voters what he would do if elected president.
Romney spoke from his heart and tried to outline the differences between himself and President Obama, but he likely did little to sway legions of voters to his camp. If anything, Romney proved he is who he is — robotic, stiff and distant. The very warm qualities voters had hoped to see from him, he did not display. The reasons are not because he didn’t want to, but because it is now evident he is unable to. He is who he is and there is nothing that can be done to change that.
Romney didn’t pull in women, minorities, or Hispanics with his all important speech. Instead, he appealed to those who have already decided they want anybody but Obama in the White House, which won’t be enough for him to win the Oval Office. If that wasn’t enough, Romney chose to share the night with actor Clint Eastwood, who went on an unscripted rant to an empty chair (supposedly where Romney would have sat), which was a bit odd and may have upstaged the Republican nominee.
Mitt Romney needed to move the needle and pull some additional voters and states to his ideology. Unfortunately for him, he did not succeed.
"Mitt Romney needed to move the needle and pull some additional voters and states to his ideology. Unfortunately for him, he did not succeed."That seems to be the consensus view across the blogosphere DJ.See: "Romney's Speech: Blogger Reax"http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/08/r…Quote for the Day There was a curious inconsistency that undermined the Obama critique though. Romney said, “He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business.” If this lack of business experience is the grand failure at the heart of the Obama presidency, then why did Romney pick Paul Ryan, who has no such experience himself?The 2012 race for the presidency has felt stuck for months. Obama is weighed down by the economy, and Romney cannot close the deal. That was the dynamic before the Republican Convention and it’s the same afterward. […] John Dickerson @Slate.comTGIF!
Some additional interesting reads…TDB: "Five Takeaways from Mitt Romney’s Convention Speech" The craven bid for the women’s vote. Claiming credit for Staples’s every success. Ex-Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer on Romney’s meh performance:I listened to Romney outline the “five steps” of his groundbreaking economic plan and then suddenly realized it sounded an awful lot like economic plans I used to write for President Bush. Parts of it even sounded a lot like economic plans outlined by Barack Obama. Give everyone a job who wants one? Build world-class schools? Empower small businesses? This is the best that the proud proprietor of Staples and the Sports Authority has got? Team Romney better hope nobody notices their guy is turning in someone else’s homework and claiming it as his own. […] Read: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/30/…TRI: "Romney's Job Plan is the Same as McCain's in 2008 (and Bush in 2006, and 2004….)"http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/romneys-job-…
Romneys speech was a joke and it only made sense to the Repubs who were already gonna vote for him anyway. He didn't say anything to pull in nobody new. If this is the best this guy can do this close to the election he's got problems.
<span><span>Um …there seems to be A LOT of chatter across the blogoshpere concerning what must have been an UNforgettable speech/performance by Clint Eastwood last night (I didn't watch any of the convention). Sounds like the old guy really went off the beaten path. . M. Moore: "Clint Eastwood’s Delusional Speech at the Republican National Convention" Speaking to Invisible Obama last night, in a performance that seemed to have been written by Timothy Leary and performed by Cheech & Chong, <span>Clint Eastwood</span> was able to drive home to tens of millions of viewers the central message of this year's Republican National Convention: We Are Delusional and Detached from Reality. Vote for Us!</span> <span></span> <span>The <span>footage of Eastwwod</span> rambling and mumbling to his "Harvey"—President Obama—will be played to audiences a hundred years from now as the Most Bizarre Convention Moment Ever. The people of the future will know nothing about Dirty Harry or Josey Wales or Million Dollar Baby. They will know about the night a crazy old man hijacked a national party's most important gathering so he could literally tell the president to go do something to himself (i.e. f*ck himself). In those few moments (and these days, it only takes a few moments—see Anthony Weiner), he completely upended and redefined how he'll be remembered by younger and future generations. […] See Video: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/31/…</span></span>
…more reax of Romney's speech from writers over at The American Conservative….N. Millman: "An Infantilizing Speech" Maybe I am getting older and crankier, but that struck me as an exceptionally infantilizing speech that Mitt Romney just gave, politically speaking.There were good bits in it, particularly in the soft-focus autobiographical stuff. He actually sounded like he choked up talking about missing the days when they’d wake up to find a pile of kids in their bedroom. He got a genuine laugh from a genuine joke. …………….But the rest of the speech was pretty dreadful, and particularly this section:"Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team. Every new college graduate thought they’d have a good job by now, a place of their own, and that they could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future. This is when our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits. This was the hope and change America voted for."I don’t have the transcript yet (the above is from the pre-released excerpts), but the next line is something like, “That’s what Americans deserve.”Think about that: immediately after the biggest economic crisis since the great depression, Americans deserved to have “the best years ever.” […]Full read: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/millman/an…D. Larison: "The Obnoxious Foreign Policy Ideas in Romney’s Convention Speech" Most of Romney’s acceptance speech seemed dull to me, but I am not part of the audience he was trying to reach. He saved all of his standard obnoxious foreign policy remarks for the very end to make sure that anyone still watching him after 11:00 p.m. Eastern would be put off and irritated. […]Read: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/th…