Night two is Kool-Aid night at the RNC

Since I watched, but did not really write much about the DNC, I was planning doing the same for the RNC, but what I witnessed tonight was so startling that I couldn't just sit idly by as a silent witness.

I hope that people at home are as sick and tired of the politics of hate and division that were on display tonight. The ZERO chant was despicable. I get that it is red meat for the base, but the Steve Schmidt version of the Republican version of politics of personal destruction were on display tonight for a national audience. Complete with the anti-elitism, anti-east coast, and anti-media tropes along with . The clear message tonight is that this election is not about policies, it is about personalities. As McCain Campaign Manager said earlier this week: "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Rudy looked more like a ring leader than a person giving a speech of importance to a national audience. Couldn't leave without a 9-11 reference, could you? Have you no dignity? Wait, no you don't. Hey Rudy, here are two things I haven't heard at the RNC: adultery and the Keating Five. I am sure you know intimately about the first having had done it a couple of times (along with McCain), and both points encompass two major post-POW moments of McCain before he reinvented himself as a Maverick.

At no point did I think the Dems went overboard and make me want to change the channel, maybe a bit boring at times, but I never felt insulted outsider at home. It reminds me of something a Republican friend, who is not supporting Obama, sent me the other day: He entitled his e-mail "Classy Response" and sent me the following Obama quote: "Let me be as clear as possible," Obama said. "I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president." Obama said reporters should "back off these kinds of stories" and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother. "How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off-limits." I am sorry, but I could not see any of the male speakers tonight saying anything close to this.

Palin was good, as I predicted she would. She has been under lock and key since Sunday and is known as a good speaker and debater. She seemed like an perfectly normal small town hockey mom, which of course she is not. She is an ideologue, not a reformer, who holds ideals that I would argue most people in this country don't agree with. (I will have more on Palin very soon.) Please take note that she provided no policy details beyond energy, in fact the majority was about her family and her as an "outsider" right after a speech where Guiliani ripped into the Dems for ignoring issues. Excuse me, but if we aren't supposed to focus on the families of candidates, why on earth was Bristol sitting with her baby's daddy? Why did McCain greet him at the airport with a big handshake (again as a photo-op)? And why on earth did we keep seeing the baby, Trig, passed up and down the aisle, including in to the hands of Mrs. McCain? If the family is off limits, stop fucking parading them around in front of the cameras. (The press is going to go gaga over the kids. "Forget the policies, those kids were so damn cute.")

Enough with the executive experience BS. By the definition everyone is using, McCain doesn't have any either.

Are we going to hear anything about the economy except for the boilerplate special dejour that the Dems are going to raise taxes?

I thought the DNC backdrop was ugly, but the RNC backdrop makes everyone look like they are part of one of those inspirational posters that were all the rage a few years back. "Ideas: If you don't have any new ones make some ad hominem attacks on and mock your opponent, sprinkle with half truths, whitewash your own history, oversimplify complex problems, pray for a pliant press, and then you too can become president."

If any of you know the following answer to this question, please let me know. What is VICTORY in Iraq? I keep hearing it from Republicans at the convention, but for the life of me I have no idea what it means. Hell maybe if I drank the Kool-Aid I would know.

I will be interested to see if this kind of attack politics works again this year. I never underestimate the voting public.

Instant analysis of Palin's speech via Andrew Sullivan, which I think is spot on.


_John

PS Republicans: if we are playing fast and loose with history, Lincoln would not have voted for you. Just drop it unless you want to be the party that didn't end segregation.

PSS. Republicans: Reagan and W have expanded the federal government more than Clinton or Carter did. It's an old tired line that history doesn't support anymore, though i understand that it excites those in the base who like turning a blind eye to hard truths.

image: "Kool-Aid Man and Logo" from flickr Paxton Holley