Archive for August, 2012

Ten winners and ten losers at the Republican convention

Friday, August 31, 2012 by:Richard Dunham
Comment
Comments

|
|

The speeches are over. The road blocks are dismantled. The delegates are heading out of town. As the debris of the week that was is swept away, let’s savor some of the high points and low points of the Republican National Convention.

Condi Rice (AP photo)

Here are ten winners and losers from the Tampa convention:

WINNERS

Condi Rice
The biggest hit at the Republican convention was a non-politician who has never run for office. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a prime-time speech that appealed to both the hearts and the minds of the audience. Her discussion of growing up under Jim Crow apartheid in Birmingham, Ala., was one of the most moving moments of the week.

Marco Rubio
The best political speech of the week was delivered by the 41-year-old freshman senator from Florida. He showed an ability to connect personally with voters and to deliver tough partisan messages with grace and wit. Best line: Talking about how his father, working as a bartender, “stood in the back of the room all those years so one day I could stand at a podium in the front of the room.” The American Dream. Bravo!

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz (AP photo)

The 41-year-old Texas Senate candidate made an impressive debut on the national political stage. His Tuesday night speech, delivered without notes or a TelePrompter, was a passionate ode to freedom, free enterprise and constitutionalism. Nobody did it better.

Ann Romney
The candidate’s wife delivered a moving tribute to her husband. Her stories about their courtship, their parents and their children went a long way toward humanizing the nominee. She also delivered the speech with the polish of a seasoned political pro.

The Romney Family
The mini-documentary on the Romney family, aired just before the bizarre Clint Eastwood interlude, made the large clan seem like an All-American Family, just like yours except bigger and better-looking. It was political propaganda at its best. And we mean that in a positive way.

Jeb Bush
The only member of the Bush political dynasty to take to the stage in Tampa was Florida’s popular former governor (and a potential 2016 candidate if Romney fails to topple President Obama this year). Without rhetorical flourishes or one-line attacks, Jeb made a compelling case for the diversity of the new generation of Republicans. A touch of class.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (AP photo)

Cathy McMorris Rodgers
The Washington state congresswoman was the face of congressional Republicans at the convention. And what a face. She was smart and tough, but she didn’t look scary or extreme. There was a reason that she was on the national TV screens at key moments in the proceedings — and not House Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Susana Martinez
Like Ronald Reagan, New Mexico’s governor explained in concise, compelling thoughts why she left the Democratic Party and became a Republican. The former prosecutor, who fought public corruption and violence against children, showed that she’s definitely ready for prime time and a bigger role in the Republican Party’s future.

Led Zeppelin
Paul Ryan probably juiced CD (and iTunes) sales of this retro band. Free advertising. National TV. Can’t beat it.

Rick Perry
The Texas governor didn’t speak at the convention, but he worked tirelessly to reconnect with the Texas conservative grassroots activists who spent the week in Tampa, and he was a ubiquitous presence on Fox News and conservative radio row. Anyone who thinks that Rick Perry is a lame duck just yet is … well, lame.

The chair and I. (AP photo)

LOSERS

Clint Eastwood
Dirty Harry, as one wag put it, turned into your crazy Uncle Harry. The octogenarian actor, once the archetype of American male toughness, seemed like a disheveled, harried has-been. His locker-room language made the Romney family cringe and his disjointed dialogue with an empty chair overshadowed the terrific documentary that proceeded his appearance and the magnificent oration of Marco Rubio that followed it. Bad act. Bad judgment. As Al Gore once said, “It’s time for him to go.”

Rick Santorum
In case we had forgotten, Rick Santorum reminded us in Tampa why he lost the Republican presidential nomination. His speech was rambling and off-key. His family’s story of living the American Dream was moving when we heard it a year ago. But he’s still telling the same old story. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Susana Martinez were vastly superior at molding their own American stories into political narratives that benefit the Republican Party.

Comedy night with Tim Pawlenty (AP photo)

Tim Pawlenty
The former Minnesota governor told the worst jokes of the convention. He bombed with a rapid-fire string of unfunny one-liners. “The president takes more vacations than that guy on the Bizarre Foods show.” Ugh. “I’ve come to realize that Barack Obama is the tattoo president. Like a big tattoo, it seemed cool when you were young.” Pawlenty wouldn’t win an eighth grade comedy night. And to think this man thought he was presidential material.

Rob Portman
There was a reason the Ohio senator wasn’t picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate. Can you say “boooooring.” He’s a budget expert — after all, he was George W. Bush’s White House budget director. But he was stiff and ineffective on stage.

Scott Walker
Wisconsin’s governor came into the convention a symbol of conservative activism and survival against an onslaught from organized labor. He left the convention a symbol — but not a leader. His speech was flat and poorly delivered. He was far less effective than his fellow Wisconsin elected official, Paul Ryan.

Chris Christie (AP photo)

Chris Christie
Barack Obama’s 2004 Democratic keynote speech rocketed him to national stardom. Three days after the New Jersey governor delivered the 2012 Republican keynote speech, almost nobody can remember a thing he said. He was overshadowed Tuesday night by Ann Romney’s classy performance.

Newt Gingrich
The former presidential candidate and his wife Calista were relegated to a minor role at Mitt Romney’s convention. They introduced a tribute to Ronald Reagan. It was cosmic justice, because, during the campaign, Team Romney attacked Gingrich for claiming closer ties to the Gipper than he actually had.

Mitch McConnell
The invisible man of the Republican convention. In Washington, Mitch McConnell is one of the most powerful and visible Republicans on Capitol Hill. In Tampa, he had a few bit parts but wasn’t central to the narrative. The party was trying to emphasize youth and diversity. And the aging senator from Kentucky didn’t fit the script.

Pam Bondi and Sam Olens (AP photo)

Pam Bondi and Sam Olen
The attorneys general from Florida and Georgia gave a dense, convoluted presentation about the failings of the Obama health-care law. It seemed like a bad law school class.They didn’t connect with voters on a gut level. And they didn’t make the case against the controversial law. Just tired talking points.

Todd Akin
Gone but not forgotten, the Missouri congressman whose comments about “legitimate rape” lit a political firestorm became a symbol in Tampa of what the Republican Party doesn’t want America to think it is. Top party leaders, including Mitt Romney, have demanded that he withdraw from the Missouri Senate race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill. But a defiant Akin, backed up by prominent anti-abortion groups, isn’t budging. Wrong optics.

All work and no play

Friday, August 31, 2012 by:Neil Vigdor
Comment
Comments

|
|

20120831-100902.jpg

TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — Oh, the things political reporters put up with to get the story.

It’s a wrap from the Republican National Convention here in the Tampa area, where I can assure our loyal readers much more time was spent on shuttle buses and getting wanded by Secret Service agents with magnetometers than foraging for sea shells.

Stay with us for wall-to-wall coverage of all the big races, the issues that matter most to voters and gossip, because no blog is complete without gossip.

Our man in Charlotte, N.C., next week for the Democratic National Convention will be David McCumber, Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau chief.

Parting shots

Friday, August 31, 2012 by:Neil Vigdor
Comment
Comments

|
|

20120831-094728.jpg

TAMPA, Fla. — Could Connecticut be the unlikeliest of battleground states this November?

The confetti from last night’s GOP finale isn’t even cleaned up, but the state’s top Republican is seeking to make that case to national party leaders today.

Check back later today with Hearst Connecticut newspapers for an in-depth post mortem on where the Constitution State fits into the race for the White House.

Hits and misses from GOP convention day 3

Thursday, August 30, 2012 by:David McCumber, Washington Bureau Chief
Comment
Comments

|
|

5 Hits

1. The Speech. It was a very well-constructed acceptance pitch, outlining a vision and a philosophy, if not a lot of substance (see below). It  built beautifully from anecdote to assertion to action, and accomplished the mission of giving Americans an alternative that has been lacking from the anti-Obama tirades this week.

2. Olympians on parade. Yes, we can get cynical about leveraging the nationalistic fervor of the Olympics for political means – but let’s face it, it was a really smart move. Having more strong, successful women on the stage didn’t hurt a thing either.

3. The story of Mitt and Ann. The Romney video, the tour of their romance and marriage and family was as big a video hit as “A Place Called Hope,” the previous high-water mark in such efforts. It evoked unmistakably a Kennedyesque hint of destiny and dynasty.

4. Marco Rubio. He looked and sounded startlingly like the real future of the Republican Party.  Whip-smart, quick and utterly poised, without the smart-alec projection that Paul Ryan may or may not outgrow, he made it clear that this will not be his last – and quite possibly not his biggest – role at the podium on the final night of a GOP convention.

5. Clint. He was a little goofy and a lot clever. Standup comedy is not really his thing, but timing and delivery certainly are. The “feeling lucky, punk? cliche was inescapable, and so he went with it. It was an odd, ad-libbed riff, with a lot of, well, dithering. But it he is beloved to this crowd, and it was a hit. His sly timing on the hammer line, “We own this country” was a master stroke.

5 Misses

1. Mitt’s delivery. He murdered a very well-written speech. Wow is he a flat, understated speaker. He would make the William Jennings Bryan speech into a soporific. Next to him Jimmy Stewart would sound like James Brown. Even when he hits the red-meat lines they sound like steak tartare, chilled, with a little lemon juice. Not his fault, but it’s a handicap.

2. The serial beatification of Mitt. My, but it went on. Mitt folds laundry, buys groceries, cooks dinner AND saves consulting firms, while founding children’s charities and providing day care for working mothers.  None of the stories were bad. The members of his congregation were down-to-earth, believable and touched the heart. But did we need four of them? The heroic Bain war stories were, of course, devoid of context. That’s not surprising or even worthy of serious criticism. Where it all went off the rails was in volume: They laid it on a little thick.

Make that a lot thick.

3. Speed skating, slow talking. Speaking of laying it on thick, Olympian Derek Parra was interminable. His message was reasonable – Romney’s leadership of the 2002 Olympics came at a very good time for America – but the windup took way too long.

4. That retro thing. Even as Mitt’s video conjured Kennedy, his personal style conjured Leave it to Beaver.  The contrast with Marco Rubio, who came before him, left the impression that generationally, that the party, Mitt style, is all about boomers.

5. Specifics. Yes, Romney listed a five-point plan, but none of the points had any discernible foundation in methodology. Not so surprising, but the entire convention, Romney’s speech included, made a faith-based proposition: Trust us. We’re good managers, and we’re good people. We know what’s best. Don’t worry your pretty little head, America, about the details. Paul Ryan did rattle off some numbers. But he’s rattled off numbers before that didn’t add up. Ultimately, the country may demand to see more – not tax returns, but fact-based backup for broad generalizations about the future.

Analysis: In acceptance speech, Romney reaches out to political center

Thursday, August 30, 2012 by:Richard Dunham
Comment
Comments

|
|

Mitt Romney capped off a Republican National Convention dominated by hard-core conservatives by reaching out to the small sliver of swing voters in the center of the electorate.

Eschewing much of the heated partisan rhetoric of most convention speakers, Romney delivered a 37-minute acceptance speech designed to help the Republican presidential nominee make political inroads with women, Latinos, African Americans, young voters and other groups that helped President Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008.

“Hope and Change had a powerful appeal,” Romney told more than 15,000 people gathered at a Tampa Bay Times Forum. “But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had, was the day you voted for him.”

While Romney’s running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, ridiculed Obama and his record, Romney expressed sorrow that so many Americans’ hopes for change were not realized.

“I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed,” said Romney, offering a sharp contrast to congressional Republicans who vowed to stymie Obama and make him a one-term president from the earliest days of his presidency. “But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn’t something we have to accept.”

With Romney and Obama locked in a statistical tie, only 11 percent of voters say there is any possibility that they will change their minds about their choice for president, a recent CNN/ORC International poll found. In swing states that have been deluged with television advertising, the size of the undecided bloc is even smaller — as low as 6 percent of the electorate.

“It’s a very small group,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “Much smaller than we usually see right now.”

Romney used his nationally televised opportunity Thursday to address those persuadable voters rather than employing red-meat rhetoric to motivate the Republican Party’s conservative core. He only briefly mentioned abortion or same-sex marriage, focusing instead on the economic issues that unite Republicans and appeal to many independent voters, as well. When it comes to jobs and free-enterprise capitalism, the Republican nominee portrayed Obama as an out-of-touch eccentric who doesn’t understand American families or business creation.

The president, he said, wants to “heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”

Romney’s speech particularly targeted female voters, who favored Obama over Republican John McCain in 2008. Convention organizers spent the final two hours of their quadrennial confab highlighting the accomplishments of female entrepreneurs, Olympic athletes and public servants. He quoted his mother, an unsuccessful Michigan Senate candidate and dedicated feminist, as saying, “Why should women have any less say than men about the great decisions facing our nation?”

His mother’s advice helped shape his worldview, he told delegates.

“As governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman lieutenant governor, a woman chief of staff. Half of my cabinet and senior officials were women. And in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies,” he said.

If Americans embraced the power of love, he told the delegates, “this world would be a far more gentle and better place.”

Instead of hope and change, Romney emphasized jobs and faith.

“Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us,” he said. “To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations. To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be. Now is the time to restore the promise of America.”

Romney’s convention shined a national spotlight on up-and-coming female and Latino politicians, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Texas Senate nominee Ted Cruz and Washington congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Rubio used his prime-time speaking opportunity Thursday to praise freedom and faith, while gently chiding Obama.

“Our problem is not that he is a bad person,” Rubio said. “Our problem is that he’s a bad president.”

Ragin Cajun

Thursday, August 30, 2012 by:Neil Vigdor
Comment
Comments

|
|

20120830-202719.jpg

TAMPA, Fla. — CBS and CNN.

They’re easy to mix up.

OK, not really.

Scene: James Carville, the “ragin Cajun” Democratic political strategist and yin to Republican Mary Matalin’s yang, mistakenly trying to enter the CBS suite at the GOP convention.

Whoops.

Like father, like son

Thursday, August 30, 2012 by:Neil Vigdor
Comment
Comments

|
|

20120830-194247.jpg

TAMPA, Fla. — Chris Healy has been collecting political pins since he was 11, including this little piece of history from George Romney’s failed 1968 presidential campaign pinned to the lapel of Healy’s seersucker suit.

The elder Romney was the governor of Michigan and entered the GOP nominating race as the frontrunner, only to falter and ultimately withdraw.

“I was a Nixon guy, still am,” said Healy, 54, the former Connecticut GOP chairman.

Healy, who is from Wethersfield, said Romney had a distinguished record as governor.

“He had to deal with riots in Detroit,” he said.

A mail boy for Nixon’s campaign back then, Healy is down at the Republican National Convention, though not as an official member of the Connecticut delegation.

Seeing Mitt Romney accept the GOP nomination is a trip for Healy.

“So he comes from good stock and he’s got the hair, very important,” Healy said.

Ten best Republican presidential acceptance speeches

Thursday, August 30, 2012 by:Richard Dunham
Comment
Comments

|
|

Ronald Reagan lays out the choices facing voters -- and lays into Jimmy Carter -- in his 1980 acceptance speech.

Mitt Romney has a lot to live up to tonight.

For one thing, his wife Ann’s speech to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday won rave reviews from nonpartisan political analysts.

And then there’s the ghost of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party icon whose memory and record has been invoked countless times over the past three days.

As the 2012 GOP presidential nominee’s big moment nears, here’s a look at the ten best Republican acceptance speeches of the past century.

Ronald Reagan, 1980

Any list of greatest convention speeches begins and ends with Ronald Reagan. The only question: Which one was better. We give the nod, by just a bit, to his 1980 speech. Addressing GOP delegates in Detroit, Reagan managed to exude optimism and confidence as he shared his conservative vision for America. Meanwhile, he eviscerated President Jimmy Carter for creating “problems that cause pain and destroy the moral fiber of real people.”

“I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts from one crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose,” the former actor and California governor declared

Highlight: “Can anyone look at the record of this administration and say, ‘Well done?’” Reagan asked. “Can anyone compare the state of our economy when the Carter administration took office with where we are today and say, ‘Keep up the good work’?”

Ronald Reagan, 1984

The 40th president’s renomination speech in Dallas was a patriotic ode to the spirit of America, the spirit of liberty and freedom, and a warning about the backsliding that would occur if liberal Democrats regained control of the levers of power. On the eve of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Reagan inspired chants of “USA, USA” with his tales of athletic heroism and military accomplishment.

Highlight: “We came together in a national crusade to make America great again, and to make a new beginning. Well, now it’s all coming together. With our beloved nation at peace, we’re in the midst of a springtime of hope for America. Greatness lies ahead of us.”

Richard Nixon, 1968

Richard Nixon was not one of the better orators to hold the nation’s highest office, but his 1968 acceptance speech may have been the best speech of his career (other than “Checkers”). It was written poetically to appeal to “the Silent Majority” of Americans discomfited by the turbulent times.

Highlight: “As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. We see Americans dying on distant battlefields abroad. We see Americans hating each other; fighting each other; killing each other at home.

“And as we see and hear these things, millions of Americans cry out in anguish. Did we come all this way for this?”

Barry Goldwater, 1964

Was Barry Goldwater’s 1964 acceptance speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco a masterful oration and a manifesto for a generation of young conservatives? Or was it an exercise in extremism that scared voters and led to a catastrophic defeat? The answer is both. But nearly five decades later, it is one of the most quoted and most admired speeches of the mid-twentieth century.

Highlight: “Those who do not care for our cause, we don’t expect to enter our ranks in any case. And let our Republicanism, so focused and so dedicated, not be made fuzzy and futile by unthinking and stupid labels. I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

Thomas Dewey, 1948

Don’t think of Thomas Dewey’s collapse in the 1948 general election or Harry Truman’s “give ‘em hell” comeback. The Republican from New York was riding high when he accepted his party’s nomination in Philadelphia. He delivered a stirring acceptance speech — far superior to his 1944 address — that waxed philosophical about America’s place in a post-war world and the stakes to the nation of retreating in the faced of Communist aggression.

Highlight: “We have found the means to blow this world of ours apart, physically. We have not yet found the spiritual means to put together the world’s broken pieces, to bind up its wounds, to make a good society, a community of men of good will that fits our dreams.”

Dwight Eisenhower, 1952

In case there was anybody in the world who didn’t know that Ike was the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, the Republican presidential nominee reminded them of his heroic service with repeated war metaphors — and some moving stories of conversations with comrades on the eve of battle. He called for a “Republican crusade” to rid the nation of waste and corruption following two decades of nonstop Democratic rule.

Highlight: “Today is the first day of this great battle. The road that leads to Nov. 4 is a fighting road. In that fight I will keep nothing in reserve.”

Ike delivered a hard-hitting speech with lots of war metaphors.

George Bush, 1988

Democrat Michael Dukakis left the 1988 Democratic National Convention with a double-digit lead over Vice President George Bush. But Bush’s political team refocused the debate on contrasting values — on foreign policy, on values, on patriotism, on crime and punishment, but especially on taxes.” He portrayed the Massachusetts governor as a technocrat and a pessimist who sees “a long, slow decline for our country, an inevitable fall mandated by impersonal historical forces.” By the end of the convention, Bush had grabbed a lead he never relinquished.

Highlight: “My opponent now says, he’ll raise [taxes] as a last resort, or a third resort. But when a politician talks like that, you know that’s one resort he’ll be checking into. My opponent won’t rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’”

Echoes of Romney: Alf Landon

Alf Landon, 1936

Alf Landon’s acceptance speech sounds like a Romney campaign speech. It reminds voters how a Democratic president had taken office in a terrible economic time and had failed to turn the economy around. It noted that unemployment remained unacceptably high and that activist government was not the answer. The flaw in his address: An alternative vision to the New Deal.

Highlight: “Judged by the things that make us a nation of happy families, the New Deal has fallen far short of success. The proof of this is in the record. The record shows that in 1933 the primary need was jobs for the unemployed. The record shows that in 1936 the primary need still is jobs for the unemployed.”

George W. Bush, 2000

How do you win a presidential election against the party in power during a time of peace and prosperity. In a well-paced acceptance speech that offered both philosophical and personal contrasts, Texas Gov. George W. Bush said the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton and Al Gore had “coasted through prosperity.” He repeated invoked his mantra, “This administration had its moment. They had their chance. They have not led. We will.”

Highlight: “Today, our high taxes fund a surplus. Some say that growing federal surplus means Washington has more money to spend. But they’ve got it backwards.The surplus is not the government’s money. The surplus is the people’s money.”

Wendell Willkie, 1940

The Republican Party in 1940 was taken over by an Indiana businessman and self-professed liberal Democrat who split with President Franklin Roosevelt over increasing government involvement in the U.S. economy. In his acceptance speech, Wendell Willkie noted that “I was a liberal before many of [New Deal] men had heard the word” and he argued that FDR had “distorted” reformist liberalism.

A liberal Democrat captured the Republican nomination in 1940 in an historical oddity.

As the grandson of German immigrants, he also chided Roosevelt for failing to do more to make America competitive with Hitler’s Third Reich. The speech comes at a turning point in American history — squeezed between the end of the New Deal and U.S. involvement in World War II — and it captures the moment powerfully.

Highlight: “Today great institutions of freedom, for which humanity has spilled so much blood, lie in ruins. In Europe those rights of person and property —the civil liberties—which your ancestors fought for, and which you still enjoy, are virtually extinct. And it is my profound conviction that even here in this country, the Democratic Party, under its present leadership, will prove incapable of protecting those liberties of yours.”

Page 1 of 1812345...Last »