RNC, Day 2

(Due to the attention given Hurricane Gustav and the low-key agenda for Day 1 of the RNC, we skip to Day 2)

My first thoughts of this year's RNC is that I'm not expecting much from this crowd -- they are, after all, the party that has held the White House for 8 years now, so what more can be said? Of course we all know the motive is to continue to elect the POTUS from their party, but the problem I see is the reality of what is going on in this country. The Iraq conflict (and the billions upon billions of dollars spent on it, without recourse from the same oil-rich country) is not popular. The economic stagnation is not popular (though some would say it's returning to normal from previous unnatural levels). The mortgage mess is not popular (although the system is failing from its own self-serving attempts to loosen the guidelines of homeownership -- I can personally attest to this, having been a part of this industry for over 11 years, but I'll save that for another post). The widening discrepancy between the "haves" and the "have nots" is not popular (will this issue ever go away in this country that relies on free enterprise and capitalism? No.).
McCain has his work cut out for him -- his predecessor has not left him with much to work with, and it's going to be difficult to disassociate himself from the current (and very unpopular) POTUS. The question becomes: how to market yourself as equal but separate? Let's use another sports analogy to analyze this: whenever a team dominates their sport for an extended number of seasons, it becomes a dynasty, but it also becomes a victim of its own success. Other teams openly court key players of the dynasty with offers of more money, less work, more control of their own schedule. The coaching staffs are robbed with promises of head coaching jobs to current assistants of the dynasty. The public fall prey to the old saying "familiarity breeds contempt" and lose interest in watching the same team win over and over again. Thus, the dynasty breaks down -- unless the dynasty becomes proactive and plans for the inevitable changes by making decisions that are so unexpected, so bombastic that no one saw them coming. The New England Patriots were consistent winners, and in the off-season they cut popular (but aging) players who were formerly instrumental to their success -- the team had to move on to stay competitive, and this is not a popularity contest. The New York Yankees were consistent winners, and in their off-season, they did the same as the Patriots, cutting loose of key players or (even worse!) signing players from their arch-rivals, because the team had to move on to stay competitive, PLUS stay in front of the public eye by making moves that made people talk about them.
In the McCain camp, we have the same thing going on. McCain needs to provide the same ol', same ol' with something different, but not too different so as to jeopardize the home base. McCain and Bush never got along, and were friendly adversaries at best. Their only connection was that they both belong to the same political party, so they had to make the peace if they wanted their party to have a future (and with all the millions of dollars in donated campaign funds over the years, they both had heavy "debts" to pay back, one way or another, and BTW, this is not isolated to the GOP, either). To see Bush up there, promoting McCain with conviction and emphasis, was, for lack of a better word, weird. All would agree that the best thing to happen to McCain was to have Bush not be there in St. Paul. The party got what it wanted in keeping the Bush speech short and sweet. Heck, the speech was even pre-recorded, so I'm sure Bush was watching SportsCenter while his speech was being played to the crowd. But that's ok with the party. Speaking of OK: I thought Laura Bush did a great job -- this woman is a teacher, so she is comfortable with commanding an audience, and she was not heard from enough these past 8 years, in my opinion.
Fab Freddy Thompson came up next, after a short film on McCain's service record as narrated by Gary Sinise (Lt. Dan to most of us). Fred did a great job telling the story of McCain's suffering as a POW. It was moving and inspiring, but every once in a while, I couldn't help wonder about the mentality of someone who would put up with this crap for 5.5 years. I wonder if McCain has secret desires to give the order to flatten all of Vietnam within five minutes after taking the oath. Or secretly commissioning a "massaud-like" team to go in there and find his captors and pull a Marcellus Wallace on 'em. But I digress...
After a video tribute to Ronald Reagan (which I thought was sloppily produced and lacking in key rallying points), we were treated to a speech from Joe Lieberman. Or at least, I heard he spoke -- I dozed off around then and don't remember much about it. Seriously, Joe should have been replaced by Rudy Guliani in that spot. Who is planning this convention agenda?
The best part of the night was when a reporter interviewed Newt Gingrich after Joe's speech -- when Newt was asked to explain Sarah Palin's experience (or lack of it), Newt went off on a tirade that was so incredible, I had to rewind the DVR and hear it again, because I just knew that Keith Olbermann was stewing about it and just couldn't wait to unleash his attack dog Rachel Maddow on it -- and I was right. Only problem for Keith was that it was followed by commercial break, then an on-the-spot interview by Andrea Mitchell with Joe Lieberman, then a segue to Chris Matthews' panel who quickly diffused the speeches properly, as we expect political discussion to be handled. Sorry, Keith, no one wants to hear what you and Rachel have to say, mainly because you don't know what you're talking about anyway, plus that's not the way to run a political discussion group. Watch the experts like Matthews and Buchanan, and learn.
All speakers were complimentary to Sarah Palin, and with good reason. Palin is going through an incredible amount of scrutiny in the past 48 hours, and most of it is uncalled for and lacking in professionalism, but it's not surprising (I blogged about this yesterday). Palin gets to speak tonight, and I would expect it to be one of the most watched speeches of either convention. Stay tuned...