I always learn something from the listeners who call in to the Divine Miss Vicki’s radio show airing in Madison, La Crosse, Eau Claire, and points north.
Friday, with guest host Brian Schimming, the phone lines were jammed with enthusiasm for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Political conventions may preach to the choir but, as the son of a preacher man, Scott Walker likes to say: you preach to the choir so they will sing. The callers on Friday were singing a happy tune. The enthusiasm was real.
Now, Mitt Romney was always my candidate, although I took a long look at the alternatives. Is there a more sincere-looking man than Mitt Romney? During the Republican debates earlier this year, he seemed to be hoping that his opponents would do well.
He sure looks presidential. I say that knowing that the race-baiters will try to make something racial out of that. I say that Ike, FDR, and Ford looked presidential – Truman, Nixon, and Carter, not so much. (Interesting tidbit: producers were casting a movie in the 1950s for the role of president. Ronald Reagan was rejected because he didn’t look like a president was supposed to look. An older Frederic March and Franchot Tone played presidents.)
But the callers on Friday were moved by his kindness to a terminally ill boy of 14. The excellent video Thursday night showed a loving family. (BTW: a three-day convention is just about right.) The rose that for the first day in 64 years wasn’t at his mother’s bedside table, evidence that his father had passed away. There is love in this man, and love creates more love.
Sorry, liberals, not every family in America is dysfunctional.
It turns out Mitt Romney is one of those men who, as in my father’s generation, don’t like to show their emotions. Or, as wife Ann Romney said during her universally well-received speech on Wednesday, they don’t do good deeds to create political talking points.
One can take the measure of a man by what he does when no one is looking.
Mitt’s speech Thursday night was excellent. Not a speech for the ages, not one to rival Mario Cuomo and William Jennings Bryan. But those guys never got to the White House. But a good speech, confidently delivered. Sincerely delivered.
That may be Mitt’s strong suit, besides the savvy businessman, that is. He exudes sincerity. He deftly countered three attack themes against him. Democrats still haven’t convinced Ann Romney, Gov. Mary Fallin, Gov. Nikki Haley, Gov. Susana Martinez, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Republicans are anti-woman.
The second is that Romney is a predator businessman. When he was just starting out at Bain Capital, he wanted to get the Mormon Church pension fund to invest, “But I didn’t. I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors’ money, but I didn’t want to go to hell too.” The take-home: He’s a believer, and ethical.
Then he went on to say that a partner did sell the Episcopalians. “Today, there are a lot of happy retired priests,” Mitt said. Take-home: Success creates more success. One does not profit at the expense of others unless you’re running a Ponzi scheme like Bernie Madoff.
The Mittster had two great lines: “In America we celebrate success, we don’t apologize for success.” But the real takeaway: “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.” Doesn’t that speak volumes about Obama’s overweening ego? His blind faith in an all-powerful government?
Romney continued, “MY promise is to help you and your family.” (Here’s the transcript.) Yeah, a little humility.
One more thing on religion. Yeah, the Church of LDS can seem kind of strange. But stranger than eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus Christ at Catholic Mass?
Mormons don’t drink or smoke. They got to do missionary work. In an episode of the TV series Cheers, Sam the bartender wanted to repent of his womanizing ways. Carla the barmaid suggested he confess his sins to a priest. After something like 45 minutes in the confessional, he returns to Cheers and whispers into Carla’s ear his priest-imposed penance.
“I told you this was no religion for wusses,” she reminds.
Mormonism is like that. It’s rigorous.
If you say so
Headline on the Capital Times website: “Romney-Ryan ticket is out of touch with women, says Planned Parenthood.”
BTW: If Capital Newspapers Inc. is going to inundate the Stately Manor with Democratic National Committee/Socialist Workers Party propaganda every Wednesday with my subscription to the Wisconsin State Journal, can’t we get a little counter-programming to balance The Capital Times?
The man in the empty chair
Isn’t there a tale about the man who wasn’t there but we still wished he’d go away?
Yes, Clint Eastwood’s stand-up comedy routine was, at times, bizarre. (Is he warming up the audience at San Francisco’s hungry i for Mort Sahl?) But it was memorable. We’re still buzzing about it, right?
“We own this country. … Politicians are employees of ours. … And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.”
It was performance art. Entirely unexpected, somewhat discomfiting, sui generis, and certainly memorable. If you’re going to have a tightly scripted convention, doesn’t hurt to have an American icon give his audience a wedgie.
What Eastwood did, with his extemporaneous air and unfilled chair, was to call bull**** on the increasingly untenable narrative that the Left has been weaving through all of the public institutions that it has spent decades infiltrating. He elevated to TV Land the shocking breach of story line and etiquette that hit YouTube years ago when angry citizens shouted down their Senators at town hall meetings.
So says the author of “The Brilliance of Clint’s Empty Chair.” (H/T RBerg)
Paul Ryan told the truth
Paul Ryan did not stretch the truth about the GM plant closing. He clearly said the plant was announced to close during the 2008 presidential campaign.
My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.
“We were about to lose” the plant. In other words, yes, it was announced during the campaign, while W. was still president. But the Democrat promised the people of Janesville “if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.”
That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.
(Here’s the transcript.) Gov. Walker affirms the record at Politico.
Next up, the party of victims
The Democratic national convention is next up. I’m dreading it but I’ll try to watch as much as I can. It will be a dreary affair. It will celebrate victimhood. It will catalogue grievances. It will preach the message that we can’t make it without the beneficent intervention of Big Gummint. It will pass the buck for the incredible disappearing economy. It will blame George W. Bush.
That was the great Paul Ryan line of Tuesday. Obama “assumed office almost four years ago – isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?”
Or, as the Man With No Name said Thursday, if they’re not getting the job done. sometimes you just got to let ’em go.
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