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September 1, 2012 Romney's RNC Speech is Lackluster, Uninspiring Spartans aim to cut down Cardinal this Friday

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by melanie.martinez

Aug 31, 2012 10:30 am



Tags: republican, Republican National Convention, Romney





Melanie Martinez is a Spartan Daily staff writer. Follow her on Twitter @meltinez.

Mitt Romney’s safe-bet speech at Thursday’s Republican National Convention was exactly like Hurricane Isaac’s effects on Florida; underwhelming, over-hyped and unremarkable.



As I settled in to catch some of the year’s most laughable programming, my primary hope for the Republican Party was the avoidance of another tremendous gaffe like Paul Ryan’s false-fact blunder of a speech on Wednesday.



While Romney avoided falling flat on his face like Ryan, he didn’t exactly rise to the occasion either.



As his speech ensued, Romney was quick to attack Obama and his administration’s lack of progress within the past 4 years, stating Obama’s “promises gave way to disappointment and division,” and he is the man to unite us and overcome the recession.



A fine notion nearly any presidential candidate might claim, yet Romney avoided informing Americans how exactly he planned to do so and only included a vague, 5-point outline to success that we’ve heard from nearly every presidential candidate in years prior.



Part of Romney’s plan was to create 12 million jobs, boost the economy, improve education, lower taxes on small businesses and reduce the deficit, which is a lovely yet implausible notion since he completely avoided the details on how exactly he would make that happen.



Romney played it somewhat safe during the most important speech of his political career to date by avoiding his business-like approach to running a nation and attempting to shed his Robo-Romney image with anecdotes about his family values and parents.



Yet, his attempt to humanize his robotic, steely persona and relate to the common American fell short from the get-go with an iPod playlist joke that felt forced and contrived.



Later, Romney tried to tout family values with stories about his parents, explaining that the power of “unconditional love” overrides “all the laws and legislation in the world.”



While the surprising hippie-rhetoric was sentimental, I was more ridden with that warm fuzzy feeling he attempted to evoke by reading those lines of his speech on a computer screen than via his stiff delivery coupled with his fixed game-show host smile.



Clearly trying to bridge the gender gap votes, Romney spoke lovingly about his mother and wife, yet completely avoided the hot issue of women’s reproductive rights.



Romney is going to have to do much more in the realm of women’s equality to close that gap than discuss his wife’s ability to successfully run a household.



He should have taken a clue in charisma from Florida Republican senator, Marco Rubio who gave a genuine anecdotal speech prior to Romney taking stage.



While Rubio’s speech wasn’t flawless,with an awkward Spanish-speaking moment that was delivered to the predominantly white audience, he was at least full of charisma and heartfelt sentiment.



More baffling was the appearance of Clint Eastwood, who spoke to an empty chair that sat an invisible Obama and told the invisible president to hush and shut-up.



Looking disoriented and stumbling over his ad-libs, Eastwood’s speech was not only confusing but his star-power distracted from the suspense of the Romney appearance.



“The president can ask us to be patient … can tell us it was someone else’s fault,” Romney said, urging for Americans to turn a new leaf.



Well, the president should absolutely tell us to be patient because the current state of the nation was someone else’s fault.



In fact, we can thank former president George W. Bush for much of our present woes.



If George W. Bush was allowed eight years to sinkhole our nation, why shouldn’t we allow Obama the same eight to try to repair the mess?



The concept Romney and many politicians forgot is that changing and rebuilding takes time, cooperation and patience.



We cannot place a patch over the mistakes of our predecessors in the hopes it will create a solid foundation.



Mitt Romney is a successful businessman who knows numbers, not people and his speech was reflective of that knowledge.



America needs not a CEO but a president who knows and cares for the success and welfare of his country’s people.



Let’s ensure our nation’s upswing this November by re-electing the candidate who actually has a shot at propelling America to success, not the man who wants to diminish women’s rights and turn our country into a business.



Ted Rudow III, MA ·

Tuesday Sep 4th, 2012



At age 33, Ralph Reed was the Christian Right’s wonder boy.



He was anointed in a 1995 Time Magazine cover story as the “right hand of God” for spinning the trust of conservative Christians into political gold. It was Reed who built the Christian Coalition of televangelist Pat Robertson into a powerful arm of the Republican Party.



But Reed fell from grace in 2006 after he was implicated in the biggest Washington scandal since Watergate. His pal and colleague, the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty to defrauding clients of millions of dollars, some of which had landed in Reed’s pockets as well. The money spigot was now wide open. Abramoff was being paid millions as a lobbyist. Reed was being paid millions to dupe his fellow Christians.



He says he intends to build the 21st century version of the Christian Coalition, with an annual budget of $ 100 million, five million members, full-time lobbyists in all 50 state capitols, and an enormous database. The pharisaical ultra-conservative, hard-Right support he receives comes largely from a hard-core of misled, fanatically anti-Communist, fundamentalist, evangelical, bigoted, self-righteous religious minority, as well as from the vast silent majority, of the indifferent, couldn't-care-less, self-indulgent, self-satisfied. That fact is these fanatical religionists also consider themselves above the law and the courts and the freedoms of the people and willing to commit any crime in the name of national, religious or so-called family security!



Ted Rudow III, MA



Class of 1996