Buckeye RINO

My favorite quote from Sarah Palin’s speech at her homecoming in Alaska was the one that appears in the title.  Alaska is the state “where men are men and women win the Iditarod.” One of the feelings one gets from a Palin speech is a feeling of empowerment.

An Obama speech on the economy is one that is deflating, as he drives home a message that we just can’t make headway on the economy without the Federal government (led by an Obama-Biden White House, a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the U.S. Senate, and a Democrat supermajority in the U.S. House of Representatives) rescuing us.  I don’t have confidence in our Congress.  So, if Obama and Biden tell me that they will partner with Congress to improve our economy, I have to say to myself that the outlook is quite bleak.  There is nothing empowering in the message of Obama.  It is a message of dependency designed to lure us toward greater socialism, and that path leads away from individual liberty.

Individual liberty is what has made us the best country on Earth, a position in the international pecking order that every other nation on earth envies.  The other nations will not become greater than America so long as their governments choose to retain more power than they relinquish to their people, and so long as we don’t allow our government to usurp more of the people’s power.

The reform message of McCain and Palin is an empowering one because it is couched in the candidates’ confidence in the people, not confidence in the government.

I am sure that the MSM, looking for dirt on Palin in Alaska, will find dirt.  Palin is not a perfect person, so I’m sure she’s made mistakes.  But she is not following in someone’s footsteps.  She’s blazing a new trail because the path that prior Alaskan governors took was one that led through quagmires of corruption.  There are times in my life that I blazed a new trail without a mentor, without footsteps of predecessors to tread in.  I made mistakes.  But I am so happy that I pushed back my horizons–those are the times in my life that are marked by achievements.  So, instead of looking at Sarah Palin to discover her mistakes, I’m looking at where the trail she blazed leads to.  It leads to government that subordinates itself more to the people.

Palin’s approval ratings hover around 80%.  It would be more useful for the MSM to discover what Palin is doing right than to only seek out the mistakes, and nothing more.  All the rest of the states have governors who make mistakes.  They could use a few pointers about how to do the job right.

The MSM thinks Palin’s approval ratings are an anomaly, an inexplicable phenomenon.  So they send their reporters to Alaska, commissioned with the task of finding Palin’s mistakes.  With those blinders on, the MSM will miss the explanation behind the approval ratings.  Let me assure the MSM that Sarah Palin did not arrive at the mountain top of public approval ratings by falling to the summit.  She climbed there.

I have been blessed to visit Alaska, the Last Frontier, on two occasions so far.  Alaska is very alluring.  I heartily recommend vacationing there.  I visited in July 2003 and in June of this year.  Let me give you a tiny peek at the land where men are men and women win the Iditarod.

In Ketchikan I rode in a small boat over the waves (lots of small jellyfish visible in the water) to an abandoned cannery that now serves as a museum where tourists become acquainted with Alaska’s fishing industry.  I attended a lumberjack show where log-rolling, pole-climbing, and other extreme sports feats (some of which get televised on ESPN from time to time) take place in an outdoor arena where audience members become acquainted with the lumber industry.  Most striking of all Ketchikan tours, though, is a journey into the folklore of some of Alaska’s indigenous peoples, the Tlingits, as exhibited by the finest totem-pole carving in the world.

In Juneau, I visited the state capitol (without any tour guide), marveled at the wares in the numerous souvenir shops, took a tram ride up Mt. Roberts, toured some ghost town ruins on Douglas Island (the photo is from the shoreline of Douglas Island looking back across the channel to the mainland near where Juneau is situated), and most amazingly of all, took a bus past Mendenhall Glacier to board a boat to have an encounter with humpback whales.  When the captain of the boat spotted some orca and some humpback whales, he cut off the engines and passed around binoculars so we could glimpse these magnificent creatures.  He explained that Federal law required them to stop a certain distance away from the whales.  We watched a pod of humpback whales surround a school of herrings, and the captain remarked how rare it was that we, as tourists, happened upon a collective feeding ritual that professional marine biologists wait for hours and days to catch a glimpse of.  Our delights did not end there.  Three humpback whales decided to come meet our boat!  They swam to us!  They not only approached closely enough to touch them with an extended arm (we restrained ourselves from doing so), but they swam under the boat and emerged on the other side!  What a thrill!

I had the opportunity to take a ferry from Skagway to Haines.  From Haines, we studied the wildlife, from the tidal basin, to the grassy meadows, to the steep mountain slopes.  Bald eagles soar through the skies, bears forage for food, and mountain goats defy gravity as they clamber up steep cliffs.

Also from Skagway, we took a ride on the White Pass and Yukon Scenic Railway, with a voice over an intercom pointing out natural wonders, such as thundering waterfalls and seismic fault lines, while telling us the tales of the Klondike gold rush of 1898.  The cog railway took us from sea level in a valley scooped out by glaciers, up a steep grade along mountain cliffs to the summit of the White Pass at the Canadian border.  Our journey also proceeded through portions of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory before returning us to our cruise ship docked in the fjord at Skagway.

I’d like America to feel a little more like Alaska, a place where you can sense exhilarating freedom. America, where men are empowered to be men, women are empowered to win, and the people are sovereign.

McSame?  Sorry, Obama, that tag line isn’t working with me.

Frankly, there’s a lot of things you’ve been trying in the past week or so that doesn’t work with a lot of people.

You haven’t figured out where to take your campaign from this point on.  You are lashing out in several directions hoping something will stick.  The MSM is trying to help as much as they can, but they don’t know which direction to focus their attacks on, because you aren’t providing the leadership to point out the avenue that they should pursue.  The bloggers of the left, seeing that you aren’t directing the message, are stepping forward to try to help you out.  They are imaginative, as the left-blogging rumor mill is generating leads for the MSM to track down.  Unfortunately, the MSM has been arriving at dead ends on stories such as Palin mandating creationism instruction in Alaska’s public schools.  The rumors turn out not to be true.  The only clear message that America is getting from this consortium of your campaign, the MSM, and the left blogosphere, is that the Palin witchhunt is on.

And since we Americans can see that it is a witchhunt, the poll numbers show that a number of us are changing our minds about who the real change agents are.  Not only will the McCain ticket NOT be eight more years of the same, your ticket is now attempting to return us to the politics of personal destruction of past campaigns.  So much for change we can believe in.

Your words may say, “McCain-Palin does not represent change,” but your bewildered reactions say, “Whoa!  Too much change!”

Note to Congress:  Don’t do it.  Don’t bail them out.

Yes, dominoes will topple in the economy.  People will blame you, the Congress, when our financial house of cards tumbles.  I know you see a bailout as a way to redeem yourselves, to at least stave off the blame.  But, guess what?  The American people don’t approve of your performance, anyway.  Look at it this way:  When it comes to Congressional approval ratings, you’ve got nothing to lose.  Go ahead and take the blame, and let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse.  Let the marketplace correct itself.

Congress, if you bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, do you know that it will cost $2 trillion?  If you spend $2 trillion, what will it do to the budget deficit?  What will it do to the national debt?  What items in our Federal budget will be displaced if you commit that much money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  Will it kill our defense budget at a time that we are waging a war on two fronts?

Guess what, Congress?  If you bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, how many more industries will you be bailing out?  The message you sent by bailing out Bear Stearns will only be magnified a hundred times when you bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  How many more Wall Street firms will ask for a bail out?  How many more of Bear Stearns ilk?  How many more banks?  Automakers?  Airlines?  Will you print more money to cover these trillions of dollars for the bailouts?  What will the increase in the money supply mean?  A worthless dollar?  Inflation that will put prices of household goods beyond the purchasing power of household budgets?  Will taxes have no choice but to go up?  Or will the interest on the national debt end up consuming more than whatever revenue the Federal government scrape together, and then find our Federal government in default?

When we let Enron go under, there was an economic earthquake in Houston.  But guess what?  Now, Houston is one of the best places to earn a wage and support a family.  When average wages are compared with the cost of living, Houston is tops in the nation for letting people take a crack at the American dream.  We let the market correct itself.  After the darkness, there will be a new dawn.

Congress, these firms that want to be bailed out engaged in bad behavior.  Terrible behavior.  Horrendous behavior.  They cheated in an attempt to get ahead.  They had their day in the sun.  Now it’s time to pay the piper.  Why should we let good money chase after bad?  We shouldn’t.  If our taxpayer dollars have to be spent on subsidizing anything (which I don’t think it does) in the private sector, why the worst performers?  Why not the best?

Trust capitalism to work out its own kinks.  Don’t socialize industries so huge that they’re too big for the Federal government to swallow.  The communist nations like the old Soviet Union fell because they let good money chase after bad, shoveling rubles into the money pit of industries that were corrupt, grossly inefficient, and totally lacking in innovation.

It is better for Wall Street to go belly up than for the nation, itself, to go belly up.

So I implore you, Congress, just don’t do it.  Don’t.

Barack Obama isn’t the only one who is trying to figure out how to step out of the shadow of Sarah Palin.  I think Bob Barr and Ron Paul have to be concerned, as well.

I was among the Republicans who might have cast a vote for Bob Barr in November had John McCain picked a liberal VP nominee.  If Bob Barr had siphoned off enough Republican votes, Barack Obama could win the election with a minority of the popular vote, just like Clinton did when Ross Perot was in the running.  I think the Republican base has been so energized now, with Palin on the McCain ticket, that Bob Barr will lose traction with those who had entertained thoughts of defecting.

By all accounts, Ron Paul had a successful convention of his own in the Twin Cities.  But when the roll call at the RNC was taken, there were less Ron Paul delegate votes than anticipated.  Ron Paul supporters certainly recognize that Washington has gone astray.  By choosing Sarah Palin, John McCain has underscored his message that Washington is wayward, in dire need of reform.  John McCain’s acceptance speech included barbs against the Beltway Republicans that were every bit as stinging as Ron Paul’s barbs.  There are still vast areas of disagreement between the McCain camp and the Paul camp, but I think Paul supporters have to feel a bit more reassured about McCain after the Palin pick than they were before the Palin pick.

McCain’s Republican base has clearly become more solidified and energized, stealing thunder from Barr and Paul, thus allowing McCain to turn his attention toward independent voters and give Obama a run for his money.

I predict that McCain’s speech at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention was better received among Ohio’s rank-and-file Republicans than it was among the audience in attendance in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  I say that because of the audience responses to McCain’s promises of reform, which were warmly received in Saint Paul but would have been wildly and enthusiastically cheered in Ohio.  While McCain clearly showed that he never approved of the excesses perpetrated by Republicans in Washington, a lot of the people who DID approve of those excesses were in the Saint Paul audience, dampening the crowd response.

In other words, the Republicans of the much-reviled Bush Administration were very well represented in the convention hall.  I think that’s a shame.  It clearly is time to turn the page.

Ohio’s rank-and-file Republicans have suffered embarrassment for the last 4 years, as scandals tainted the Republican brand when Bob Ney, Bob Taft, Joe Deters, and others, turned out to be undesirables.  We rank-and-file Republicans in the Buckeye State are still dismayed by some of our state legislators and Congressional Representatives who still adhere to the principles of pay-to-play politics.  We are hungry for a better crop of Republican officeholders.  Clearly, if there are any Republicans anywhere in this nation eager for the McCain-Palin reform message, they are here in Ohio.

Several of the early speeches of the day were dreadful.  How in the world does Kansas put up with its singularly uninspiring U. S. Senator Sam Brownback.  His speaking manner was absolutely annoying.  I was at the point of turning away from C-Span coverage.  He was followed by a speaker that was nearly as bad: Oklahoma Congresswoman Mary Fallin.  They need professional help to improve their speaking abilities.  It’s a good thing the other networks talked over top many of these early speakers, because whatever lift Giuliani and Palin provided last night would have been quickly deflated if everybody heard those speeches.

McCain should have had nothing but passionate reform, reform, reform speakers tonight in order to keep the ball rolling from last night’s performances.  Speaking without passion and detouring from the reform message by some of the earlier speakers was dampening enthusiasm.

I think many of those Beltway Republicans in attendance were subtly trying to sabotage McCain by not reacting enthusiastically to the McCain reform message, like when he talked about the spending, the earmarks, the corruption, the selfishness.  Some of those selfish Beltway Bandits may be hoping that McCain falters this year, mistakenly thinking that they can be leader of the pack in 4 years.  Brownback certainly performed that way.  Some Beltway Bandits haven’t figured out that ordinary Americans are not proud of their behavior (and some may be in for a rude awakening when they’ve lost re-election bids this November).  Other Beltway Bandits (like U.S. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska) perversely feel that they will not be denied the spoils, no matter what, and those are the ones that will sabotage McCain and welcome Obama as President.  Those are the ones that were resisting McCain’s message in Saint Paul.

I think it was necessary for McCain to own up to the fact that our Republican representatives in Congress have let down the voters, despite the bad vibes it caused among GOP bigwigs in Saint Paul, and even though it could be used as cannon fodder by Obama.  In order to give McCain any credibility at all for the prospects of reform, especially for any independents that may have been paying attention, McCain had to clearly show he was not going to lead the nation through 4 more years of a Bush Administration.

Overall, I think the McCain speech was effective, and I’m hoping that most viewers didn’t tune in until the later portions of the evening.  I did feel that stir of patriotism within me as McCain spoke with conviction of his solemn commitment to our nation.

Obama has seized upon a quip by a senior campaign advisor to McCain about fleshing out a portrait of McCain based on his personality rather than his views on the issues.  How disingenuous.  Of course, views on the issues are extremely important when running in a legislative race.  There is a place for defining character traits when running for the executive branch.

Obama, in making his campaign all about judgment, has certainly put personality front and center.

McCain has wanted to address the issues much more than Obama has.  McCain invited Obama to make a series of joint townhall appearances so that voters could get an apples-to-apples comparison between the two major party nominees on the issues, but Obama rejected the invitation.

If Obama wants to turn the campaign back to issues, then, by all means, resurrect the notion of joint townhall appearances.  Obama doesn’t want to be pinned down on issues.  He wants McCain to speak out on issues first so that Obama can find fault with what McCain says no matter how McCain says it.

Why has the McCain camp made a recent effort to flesh out McCain’s personality during the convention?  I think it’s an opportunity to push back against Obama’s biggest lie:  McCain is Bush and Bush is McCain.  If anyone is paying attention, McCain is laying to rest any notion that he is Bush.

McCain, I am certain will be happy to leave behind the “McCain is Bush” narrative to more fully address the issues, but Obama would have to abandon the “McCain is Bush” refrain.  Obama would have to agree to joint townhalls or, at the very least, more debates.  Obama has shown no inclination to move beyond “McCain is Bush,” so his criticism of the McCain camp for defining McCain’s personality is nothing but a gimmick.

The first Obama campaign response to McCain’s VP announcement of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin didn’t highlight that she was a governor.  Instead, it belittled her as a small town mayor.  This morning, I finally remembered what Barack Obama said to his San Francisco peers about small-town-America.  Is he trying to communicate that Sarah Palin is one of those bitter Americans, so bitter that her reason for clinging to guns and religion is self-explanatory?  My goodness, what if she gets elected, and actually brings her guns to Washington with her?  What if she starts each day on the job as VP with prayer?  Can we afford to have a bitter American as VP who will turn Washington on its head like Palin would?

Maybe I’m way off base.  Hugh Hewitt has written a compelling blog entry at Townhall.com that offers an alternative explanation of the Obama camp’s urge to tear Sarah Palin apart, and I recommend that everyone read it.

The left cannot escape the mindset of identity politics, despite Obama’s talk of post-racial, post-gender, post-ideological, and post-generational politics.

When they look at Sarah Palin, the only thought that comes to their mind is that she’s a woman.  To the left, if a woman can’t pass muster with Emily’s List, she can’t be taken seriously.  Thus she’s a token.

I have a challenge for the political left:  Name a governor with higher approval ratings than Sarah Palin.

I’m waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Time’s up.

I submit to you that the reason why Sarah Palin’s approval ratings reach up to 80% is because she is superb at doing her job.  Performance on the job is her qualification.

She’s cleaning up the excesses of her corrupt predecessors.  Do you think that fact would leap to the attention of Senator McCain, who was so stung by “Keating 5” that reform has been his mission ever since?  I think so.

She’s vetoed bill after bill after bill to force the legislature to weed the pork out of the budget.  Do you think that fact would leap to the attention of Senator McCain, who has fought earmarks in Washington?  I think so.

She’s appointed Republicans, Democrats, and independents to positions in her administration and gotten more accomplished in 2 years than her gubernatorial predecessor did in 12 years.  Do you think that fact would leap to the attention of Senator McCain, who has railed against gridlock and reached across party lines to get things done?

Among the things she’s gotten done is a natural gas pipeline project that sat on the drawing board for 30 years is finally getting underway.  She’s shown a commitment to finding more energy solutions in an environmentally responsible manner.  Do you think that fact would leap to the attention of Senator McCain, who has campaigned for America’s energy independence?

Let’s be clear: There is no one more qualified to be on a McCain ticket than Sarah Palin.  McCain sees elements of himself in the impressive resume of Sarah Palin.

Choosing the governor who is doing better at her job than any other in America is not tokenism!

And why wouldn’t the best governor be among those ready to be President at a moment’s notice?

The political left is being entirely dishonest about the charges of tokenism, entirely dishonest about the talk of a new, unifying, brand of politics, and entirely dishonest about changing Washington.

The change ticket I believe in is the one that has ACCOMPLISHED change, not the one that only has talk.

I was watching On The Record with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Channel when an Alaskan journalist explained that Sarah Palin’s approval ratings as governor were above 80% because she’d accomplished more in less than two years than the previous governor had accomplished in 12 years (spanning 3 full terms).  She’s a “go-getter” who “doesn’t let the dust settle around her.”  Apparently, she has a talent for multi-tasking, which means DOING things, not just talking on a stage with help from a teleprompter.

So for the Obama camp to belittle her accomplishments because she has less than two years experience as governor, with a prior stint as a small town mayor, fails to really capture what she can do for America.  She took on the “good old boys,” but, unlike me, she actually won AND the “good old boys” were within her own party.  She exposed their corruption, and that may partly be why Sen. Ted Stevens is under indictment right now.  Besides policing the corruption, she ramrodded through ethics reforms, got a natural gas pipeline construction project off the ground, and trimmed earmarks out of the state budget through prodigious use of the gubernatorial veto power.  She’s visited Alaska’s National Guard troops while they were deployed in Kuwait and Iraq.  All departments of the state answer to her, and she makes decisions of great consequence many times every day.

Her 2 years equal more than her predecessor’s 12 years.  Let’s not just look at this in a quantitative way.  If we look at it in a qualitative way, you can begin to appreciate why the Republican base is so happy to have her on the ticket, especially the OHIO Republican base, which was demoralized by GOP scandals leading up to the disastrous elections of November 2006.  This woman is not just a McCain gimmick, as the Obama camp so savagely derides her to be.  She represents the solution to a problem that has plagued Ohio and has definitely plagued Washington.  Much has been made of the President’s low approval ratings, but the ratings of Congress are even worse.  Sarah Palin is the dynamic individual that represents the prescription for what ails us.

I don’t know what terrifies the Obama camp more:  the fact that the Republican base is now unifying and getting motivated; or the prospect that if the McCain-Palin ticket is elected, Washington will have its secrets exposed and have to finally clean up their act.  I think there may be a lot of shenanigans Sen. Biden might have some awareness of (since he’s been there for 36 years) that have to be straightened out.

I ran for state representative twice in Ohio’s 56th House District, in 2002 and in 2004.  I had no prior experience holding elective office.  The incumbent I was running against had nearly 30 years of experience in office.  I remember having to debate the issue of experience with the editors of the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, who place great importance on experience when weighing endorsement experience.  I explained that qualifications for serving in the legislative branch are different than serving in the executive branch.  I said that experience (and a resume) DOES matter for executive (and judicial) branch offices, but positions on issues should be the main deciding factor for choosing legislative candidates.  Our constitution has checks and balances not just between the three branches of government, but also checks and balances between professionals and amateurs, in order to make sure we have government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Amateurs make the laws in order to make sure that laws are fair for everyone.  It’s ideal to have a cross-section of people representing us in legislatures.  You don’t want legislators to serve in office for too long because you don’t want them to develop an “inside the Beltway” mentality where they become less connected and less sensitive to the will of the people.  But while amateurs make the laws, professionals in the executive branch enforce the laws.  In the judicial branch, their are judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys that are all professionals, but there is still a check and balance by amateurs who form a jury of peers.  Running for state representative has no qualifications other than residing and being registered to vote in the district where you are running. The relative brevity of legislative terms is another demonstration of how legislators were envisioned to be amateurs by the framers of the Constitution.  I told the Chronicle-Telegram editors that I was fully qualified to run for the legislature, and that they were adding unnecessary criteria when making their selection.

I also spoke to the Chronicle-Telegram editors about the poor quality of experience of the incumbent.  With all the quantity of experience, measured in years, that the incumbent had logged, there was a dearth of accomplishments.  I not only talked about the volume (or lack thereof) of legislation produced by the incumbent, I also cited the condition of the 56th District (crime, blight, pollution, poverty, education deficiencies, unemployment, etc.) as evidence that the incumbent had really done very little to advance the cause of the people he represented.  Why not take a chance on a newcomer when there’s a lack of productivity from the incumbent (despite the quantity of experience) and when I’m not running for an executive or a judicial branch office?

The office of U. S. President, however, is an executive branch office.  One needs a resume.  Being that it’s the highest executive branch office in the land, a candidate ought to have experience in a lesser executive role in order to make the case that they are up to the task of tackling the highest office.  John McCain had a command within the U. S. Navy.  Sarah Palin has been a mayor and a governor.  As Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin was at the helm of a state that is larger than many nations, with a GDP greater than that of many nations.  McCain and Palin have both been exemplary.

Senator Obama and Senator Biden have legislative experience.  Legislators are amateurs that represent the people.  Obama and Biden have, in a way, bastardized the legislative capacity in which they serve  by way of becoming professional politicians.   Professional politicians have a place in the executive and judicial branches, but a cross-section of common people, ideally, were to serve for relatively short stints.  Legislators take stands on issues, write legislation accordingly, debate issues, gather support for issues, vote on issues, and serve constituents.  They don’t carry out the law.  They don’t enforce the law.  They don’t administer the law.  Administration requires professional specialized skills.  Legislating requires skills any literate person can perform.  The legislative experience of Obama and Biden, while appearing voluminous, really amount to virtually nothing when measured against the requirements of the executive branch, especially for the highest executive office in the nation–kind of like how cotton candy can occupy a large volume of space, but when you bite into it, there’s really not much of anything there.

So this is a masquerade.  Obama and Biden are masquerading as though they really have the experience necessary to be President.  The reality is that McCain and Palin are the ones who possess the quality of experience capable of suggesting that they are ready to tackle the challenge of the Presidency.

In the end, while Obama and Biden talk a good game of CHANGE, and mock Palin as being more of the same (along with McCain being more of the same), Palin has actually effected CHANGE.  Talking change on the one hand versus accomplishing change on the other . . . I have to conclude that the McCain-Palin ticket is the superior ticket.

The Democrat National Convention wrapped up with a speech by Barack Obama that was more contentious than anticipated.  While many pundits predicted that surrogates and VP nominee Joe Biden would act as the attack dogs and deliver the red meat, the speeches of said surrogates mostly fell flat.  Much of the mood of unity in the audience during the early going appeared to be bolstered by the musical performances of famous singers.  Barack Obama assumed the role of attack dog, not reaching the lofty heights of his famous keynote speech of four years ago.  Overall, I think the climax of the convention occurred on the 3rd night, with the speech of Bill Clinton.

I won’t elaborate a whole lot.

The convention love fest finally began with the conclusion of the delegate roll call vote, with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York playing the pivotal role.

The theme of the evening was supposed to be national security, but the early speakers seemed to be stuck on last night’s theme until U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland delivered his speech.  Having said that, Cummings’ speech was lackluster.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton delivered the home run speech.  Really.  His speech included everything Obama could have hoped for, and the delegates, universally, ate it up.  Naturally, I disagree with some of Clinton’s assertions, but the speech, as a device to unify the convention, structure the dialog for the upcoming general election campaign, and bolster morale, Bill Clinton brought the goods, and the resulting elation brought down the house.  For those who deny Bill Clinton has a knack for politics, they just need to see and hear the speech, and they’ll develop an appreciation for just how expert he is.

I’ve never been a fan of the Clintons.  I’m still not.  Even as Bill Clinton was talking about Barack Obama rebuilding our military, a voice in the back of my head was saying “And isn’t Bill Clinton partly responsible for why our military needs to be rebuilt?”

Nevertheless, as I said, Bill Clinton hit it out of the park.  For those who were wondering how Barack Obama could possibly get a double-digit bounce in the polls from his convention, Bill Clinton might have single-handedly garnered that bounce.  Polls in the next few days will reveal how effective Clinton was, but I suspect it was very effective.

The remainder of the speeches of the evening paled by comparison.  That crescendo of emotion that was experienced during the Clinton speech never reached those heights for the remainder of the evening, not even when VP nominee Joe Biden spoke.

There were some tender moments, though, when some former military personnel spoke, and a video montage paid tribute to our veterans.  The thought that passed through my mind is that I hope Code Pink of Berkeley, California, is watching, and that I hope Code Pink will rethink Marine Corps recruitment.  Our nation would not be the greatest nation on earth without our men and women in uniform.