“More than anything, Palin's career in Alaskan politics presents her as a fierce politician who is fully devoted to her issues, and extremely capable at winning over voters.”
The talk about Sarah Palin in the week or so since she was chosen to run for VP has mostly been of her alleged lack of experience, affinity for gun-toting and baby-having, and those of her pregnant 17-year old daughter, Bristol. Last night, though, Palin had her chance to fire back, and fire back she did. Not that she was speaking to a particularly tough crowd, but she succeeded in whipping the masses into a high frenzy with her strong words about politics, policy and family. This morning's assessments are near-identical: it was a heck of a performance.
There are lingering concerns about Palin's lack of foreign policy savvy (she received her first passport in 2006), but the doubts of her capability as a politician are waning. In a revealing New York Times story this week, Palin's rise in Alaskan politics was charted in some detail. According to the story, Palin succeeded in bringing partisan politics to the small town of Wasilla, where she ran for mayor against a three-term incumbent and won.
Until Palin's arrival, politics in Wasilla hadn't had much to do with religion, pro-life laws or the second amendment. With the help of the Republican Party, which hadn't been involved in the town's nonpartisan elections before, she campaigned using all of these things, and transformed the town's political landscape.
More than anything, Palin's career in Alaskan politics presents her as a fierce politician who is fully devoted to her issues and extremely capable at winning over voters. Her nickname on her high school basketball team was “Sarah Barracuda,” and in her speech last night she compared herself to a pitbull. Both comparisons seem more true to life than not: Palin is an aggressive and fearless operator who is not afraid to go after whatever it is she wants.
Doubts remain about John McCain's hasty vetting of Palin, and how she would fare should circumstances demand her to step up to the president's position. For now, though, pretty incredibly, she seems to have rallied her party behind her, and convinced many of her ability to lead and inspire.
Check out our behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to work at the Xcel Energy Center during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. We'll show you the convention floor, Radio Row and Tavis' set and workspace.
“Love her! Love her! Love her!” first-time alternate delegate Ashley Barbera says about vice-presidential pick Sarah Palin. “I've been hoping that McCain would pick her for the last three or four months.”
First-time delegate Ashley Barbera shows off her new "McCain/Palin" button.
Barbera, a law student and part of the Maryland delegation, sat down to chat with our Web team at the start of her day. She filled us in on her schedule, which she says is “in flux” because of Hurricane Gustav, and on young voters' thoughts on Sen. Barack Obama.
“Young voters, they do care. They do pay attention,” Barbera says. “And once you start tuning into an election, you're going to see a lot more that Obama's a great speaker, but I think a lot of that is all there is.”
Barbera, who showed off her McCain-Palin button with pride, says that McCain's experience, personality and bi-partisan record attracts young voters.
“McCain, I think, is my generation's brand of Republican,” Barbera says. “He's a maverick. He stands up to Republicans or Democrats when he sees something that is wrong.”
No Longer the Party of Old White Men
First-time alternate delegate from Missouri Justin Smith agrees. The law student has been volunteering on political campaigns since he was 9 years old, supported Sen. John McCain even before the primary season began and says his initial excitement last week about Sarah Palin and the prospect of the conventions has been “tempered and subdued” this week by Hurricane Gustav.
“We're all concerned with what's happening in the Gulf and very worried,” Smith says. “It's not as much of a party.”
In addition to his delegate duties, Smith is blogging for the St. Louis Beacon where he reported on the mood at the convention Monday and told readers that the “Republican Party will be the second priority this week; America will come first.”
Like Barbera, Smith says that he's excited with the choice of Sarah Palin for vice president.
“Everyone thinks we're the party of old white men,” says Smith, a young white man. “But we can support women, and we do, and now that's being highlighted.”
Palin Must Hold Her Own
Stay-at-home mother of four and first-time delegate from Illinois Stephanie Hitt says she identifies with Palin, a mother of five who is the same age as Hitt.
First-time delegate Stephanie Hitt discusses McCain's choice for running mate.
“There's actually someone at the convention that I sort of look to and feel like I understand in a way,” Hitt says.
Hitt, who is also blogging about her convention experiences on her blog Hitt to Right, is from Obama's state and from the district that covers Hillary Clinton's hometown but is dedicated to the McCain-Palin ticket. The way for that ticket to win in November, Hitt says, will be for Palin to shine at the vice-presidential debate.
“If she can hold her own against a very, very tough statesman like Joe Biden,” Hitt says, “she'll be able to prove to the public that she's up for being a heartbeat away” from the presidency.
Even if you haven't been personally effected by foreclosure, it's hard to escape the reach of the mortgage crisis. News reports of displaced people across the country, lured in by easy financing only to be pushed out by skyrocketing interest rates, stories of normal Americans who have lost their homes, are all too common. These are the “everyday people” Tavis frequently mentions, many of them hardworking, ambitious citizens, striving for their promised share of the American dream.
What the news can't usually offer us, however, are in-depth portraits of the mortgage crisis on a person-by-person level. It's easy to see the situation in terms of numbers, of houses repossessed, of people forced out; what is far more difficult is to see this as a story of people.
In the October issue of Harper's magazine, a story by Paul Reyes attempts to do this, with profound results. "Bleak Houses: Digging Through the Ruins of the Mortgage Crisis" tells the story of Reyes' experience “trashing out” foreclosed homes, that is, removing the left-behind possessions of the previous inhabitants. In his account of his time spent doing this, Reyes is able to tell the human story of the mortgage crisis in startling detail. Working in Florida, one of the hardest-hit states, in which at one point 35,000 homes were being reclaimed every month, he details his experience of the phenomenon, which he describes as “surreal in its proportion, biblical in its egalitarian reach, like an economic cleansing fire.”
Reyes' story does what narrative journalism does at its most effective, brings a large topic down to the scale of a single human being. It also does what stories in Harper's do at their very best, convey the poetry of the mundane, so that an otherwise unremarkable act like clearing garbage from an abandoned home, or the conversation between two laborers, becomes something far more than the sum of its parts. In "Bleak Houses," the conversations between his coworkers are heavy with unspoken metaphor, laden with dark absurdity, at times recalling dialogue from a Beckett play.
Through descriptions of a homeowner killing himself as a sheriff arrived to evict him, of swarms of tenacious fleas, homes both pristine and squalid, all abandoned quickly, and of the clearing out of “a house new enough that it had been built, bought, lived in, and lost before the garage was even finished,” Reyes provides a rare glimpse inside the crisis.
Through interviews with realtors, speculators and former homeowners, Reyes begins to describe how this was allowed to happen. He doesn't, however, get too far into the economic nuts and bolts of what created the situation; we've all heard about that by now. Rather, he reports from the ground on the human impact of the mortgage crisis. It is passages like this that particularly drive the gravity of the situation home:
“Hearing [one former homeowner's] panicked voice, one could understand the depth of this crisis in a way that the business pages failed to convey. One could simply multiply her desperation by tens of thousands—leagues upon leagues of homeowners trapped in pathetic confusion, having been upended by their desire, taught as a tenet of good citizenship in America, to own something permanent; in this case, a house that was now practically worthless, that merely marked a spot for bulldozers when it came time to widen the interstate.”
It is a remarkable and moving read, and for anyone seeking a glimpse of human impact of our country's current economic doldrums, it brings the reality home.
In this blogger's opinion, Saturday Night Live has been in a bit of a slump since Will Ferrell left all those years ago. They still do come up with a gem every now and then, though. Such was the case this past Saturday, when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler stood side by side as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. What followed was one of the best-placed shots at the Palin vice presidency so far.
Sure, they portray Palin as an airheaded beauty queen, which she obviously is not (she didn't win Miss Alaska, after all...), but despite their caricaturing of both women, they accomplish something quite important. Standing next to Hillary Clinton, with her extensive political experience, feminist street-cred and foreign policy savvy, Palin looks all the more like the backwoods conservative that she is.
This is pretty funny stuff, but it would be a lot funnier if Palin didn't actually have a shot at getting to the White House.
We noticed while walking around the Republican National Convention this week that there are a number of women delegates, but not that many delegates of color. In fact, African Americans make up less than 2 percent of the 2,380 delegates, according to a recent report.
We talked to Darcell Streeter, an African American woman from Florida who serves as Executive Director of the Duval County Republican Party, about bringing diversity to the GOP.
The satirical action, which the groups staged outside the Texas delegation's hotel in downtown St. Paul, MN, asked Americans to support the big oil companies, the Bush Administration, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin.
“Is it such a good idea for any one race or group of people to be by and large the majority of any one party? ”
I read Tamika's article, and I had to agree. Diversity of thought, opinion, competing ideas and solutions are necessary to bring about an effective government in our country. This includes our schools, neighborhoods, faith-based organizations, nonprofit groups and businesses.
Is it such a good idea for any one race or group of people to be, by and large, the majority of any one party? I'm pretty sure there are some individuals who are Republican by party affiliation, but may share deep “Democratic” ideas, and vice versa.
I think that in the very near future, we will have more diversity of race in the political parties, including Independents. I think at this point in our nation's history, we're going to have to look at the records of the individuals to see where their hearts and minds are on the issues. A simple big “D” or “R” attached to their name just won't do.
Blacks don't want to be taken for granted simply because they support a Democratic candidate. By the same token, blacks who choose to vote Republican or choose to run as a Republican candidate can't immediately be “sell outs” nor have any good ideas.
This is a critical issue, and I would love to hear more on the topic.
“You now have the makings of an economic catastrophe.”
Most of us by now have heard about the pending economic hardship we're about to face. The way we got here is based on a couple of factors:
1) Bad loans-no regulation or oversight.
2) As a result, people got duped into subprime loans.
3) Some people got into homes they knew they couldn't afford.
So, what happened? It all started with credit. Our ability to live and do business, based upon credit was the cornerstone of what made us such an economic power.
Then a few years ago we began hearing ads on television and radio about home ownership. Commercials would say things like,”If you have good credit, bad credit or no credit, we can put you in a home.” This was subprime lending at work.
Most of this was based upon credit. The money needed to purchase a home, start a business, expand a company, or anything else was merely based on credit.
Many people as a result knowingly and unknowingly got signed into bank mortgages and high risk loans. These mortgages got wrapped up into huge bundles and sold to larger banks like the ones on Wall Street.
The value of those companies traded on Wall Street, as a result, had an inflated value. Foreign investors would then look at these assets and purchase them. From their perspective, purchasing American debt was a good idea because they trusted us to pay back our debts.
But, when people started seeing their Adjustable Rate Mortgages doubling and tripling, they couldn't afford to pay them. So if you were used to paying $1,300 a month for your mortgage payment, and all of a sudden you saw a bill for $2,600 or $3,900, you may have been unable to pay that amount.
Keep in mind that we're also seeing thousands and thousands of individuals losing their jobs, and the credit crisis was continuing to get out of control.
Take that situation and multiply it times a thousand homes. Think ten thousand. These $150,000 to $350,000 homes all of a sudden begin to lose equity and people begin to see their homes foreclosed. You now have the makings of an economic catastrophe.
Because of this, I am in support of the $700 billion recovery plan. The rationale is that if we can stem the disruptive activity of these home foreclosings and keep the economic markets from collapsing, then we will have enough stability in place to keep us from spiraling out of control.
There are many interrelated parts that make this plan hard to swallow, but, when looking at the myriad factors affecting U.S. citizens, we may not have a choice.
“The policy of the Republicans has been that people don't really need the government in their lives, telling them where they can and can't teach evolution and making them register their AK-47s.”
My fellow blogger Sean recently outlined the major causes of the financial crisis we've all been talking about, while explaining why he thought the bailout was a good idea. After reading his thoughts, I had some of my own.
The more I hear about this $700 billion bailout, the more despondent I become about the hypocrisy of our leaders. I have long suspected that in order to succeed in politics, you must be a hypocrite to a great degree. Otherwise, how can you hope to appease everyone? This week, I am more convinced of that than ever, and more than a little PO'd.
On Wednesday, President Bush addressed the nation from the White House, and did what his government does best. He struck fear into the hearts of millions, warning them that, “Our entire economy is in danger.” Without immediate action, he said, America could “slip into a financial panic,” which could ultimately lead to a “long and painful recession." The message was clear, and completely in line with the Bush government's previous calls to panic in the shape of WMDs, the Axis of Evil, “The Terrorists,” Venezuela, etc. All he left out was the part about, “Remember The Great Depression? Yeah, like that, except worse.”
The Neocons like Mr. Bush and the “Maverick” John McCain have been running this country into the ground for the last eight years with their policies of deregulation and so-called “small government.” The policy of the Republicans has been that people don't really need the government in their lives, telling them where they can and can't teach evolution and making them register their AK-47s. Speech after speech at the recent Republican convention touted this party as the party that WON'T spend all of your money on frivolous things like healthcare and welfare and social security and prisons. Rather, it will give these things over to private companies, who, because of our flawlessly-functioning free market economy, will manage them better than any government beaurocrat ever could. Perhaps I won't be the first one to make the point about the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars spent losing ideological wars over nothing (drugs, Iraq, illegal immigration, take your pick), but this seemed like the place to get that in there. But I digress.
So what happens to some of these companies that have been allowed to run amok, unregulated, giving huge loans to anybody who could sign their name, and making billions of dollars in the ensuing free for all, what happens when the money runs out? When they've taken America's lower-middle class for all they're worth and can't squeeze another cent out of them? The government, who has campaigned for years on the ability of industries to regulate themselves, bails them out.
Now, whether or not I think spending nearly $1 trillion dollars of taxpayer money to stave off economic collapse is a good idea is not what I'm writing about today, nor is that really the issue. The issue is that, in this case, the market won't right itself. That propping up the economy on financial institutions who have the freedom to sell whatever kind of worthless junk loans they like is probably not a good idea. The issue here is that you can't leave the fox to guard the henhouse and then come back in the morning and wonder where all the chickens went...unless you're a bank in George Bush's America; then the government will buy you new chickens.
“It was unfair for the media to attack the governor's family and children. Politics is one thing; personal attacks are another.”
The news and reports of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin have been in headlines, blogs and conversations around the country. People have been highly critical of her political expertise and ability to assume the position of president should she be called to take on that role in the wake of something happening to John McCain should he become the next U.S. president. These are valid and highly merited concerns of voters in this election.
What has not been fair are some of the off-handed remarks that have been thrown at her family since being thrust into the national spotlight.
It was unfair for the media to attack the governor's family and children. Politics is one thing; personal attacks are another. It's best to keep the attention on the issues. Who do you think is best suited to take care of the economy? Who do you trust on foreign matters? Who will bring new jobs to the country? Who will do the best job weaning America off its oil dependency? All of these questions are vital and should be considered, before attacking the family of any presidential or vice presidential candidate.
“It was a very moving and captivating speech that left the audience silent. It made people reflect on the idea of freedom and what it means to serve one's country.”
Fred Thompson addressed the Republican National Convention Tuesday night. He expressed to voters the qualities and characteristics that make John McCain who he is, and why he's ready to be commander-in-chief.
Prior to coming out to the floor to address the convention, a tribute to Ronald Reagan was shown, demonstrating his own path and leadership to the country. The tribute mentioned his reform agenda, going against the status quo, and being somewhat of a maverick in his own right.
Thompson spoke of McCain's early years. He spoke of his at times rebellious nature, but uncompromising commitment to service. He spoke of McCain's time in the Navy, and how on the fateful day of October 26, 1967 his plane was attacked.
McCain's body at that time was severely damaged. His captors took a bayonet and hit him in the ankle and groin. Thompson told the audience how he was given the opportunity to leave captivity, and how John McCain refused. He told the audience how McCain was told by his captors that if he didn't leave that the pain would become much worse, and it was.
It was a very moving and captivating speech that left the audience silent. It made people reflect on the idea of freedom, and what it means to serve one's country.
Throughout the evening the mood lightened and Thompson took a moment to throw a few political jabs from the podium. Thompson remarked, “To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president. History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President.” Referencing the talks at Saddleback Church he went on to say “And we need a President who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.”
Republicans seemed fired up and ready to take the battle to the Democrats this fall for the presidency. The crowd erupted into applause at Thompson's speech with a better understanding of the man running for president on the Republican ticket.
About 2,000 anti-war protestors clashed with St. Paul Police today, outside the Xcel Energy Center. The peace activists, organized by the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, chanted, marched and held signs, and several were quelled with pepper spray and arrested.
Our Web team was on the ground to capture the arrests and found that, during the protest, the perimeter around the convention center was so airtight that we had a difficult time getting to the street to take photos.
While in Denver we met with the College Democrats during their morning seminars on environment and religion in politics, and today we went to see what the College Republican National Committee was up to.
We stopped by the Minneapolis Convention Center this morning and found them playing an interactive computer game created by Visa in conjunction with the NFL and the Players Association called “Financial Football Training Camp.”
The coach for the mock Minnesota Vikings team was former Vikings All-Pro Cris Carter, who says that he wants young people to be “financially responsible” and develop “good spending and saving habits.”
The game, which gives each team yards based on correct answers, included questions like “Which is a more liquid asset?” and “What is the latest time that a telemarketer can call your home?”
The College Republican National Committee has about 500 members at the RNC and a couple dozen of them attended the event today to play financial football and chat with Cris Carter.
Non-partisan Must Mean Republican
We grabbed several bags of potato chips for the road and left the College Republican event for CivicFest, a weeklong museum exhibit and vendor fair billed as a “non-partisan civic event celebrating American democracy and Minnesota statehood.”
With life-size replicas of Sen. John McCain, “NoBama” bumper stickers and vendor signs welcoming guns on the premises, it took us a while to figure out what was non-partisan about the event.
Turns out there were Air Force One, Oval Office and presidential limousine replicas with a miniature White House, which were all pretty non-partisan. The event, of course, wouldn't have been complete without a walking, talking Uncle Sam and Statue of Liberty.
McCain buttons, colorful shirts, "Drill Here" hats and warm smiles. These are the sights from the convention floor at the Republican National Convention.
It is 10 feet long, about 7 feet wide and 8 feet high. It is outfitted with a steel toilet, fluorescent lights and a “Counter Terror With Justice” logo. And since Monday, the life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay prison cell has been sitting on the corner of 7th and Walnut in downtown St. Paul, just in time for the Republican National Convention.
Visitors to the cell have an opportunity to sit locked inside of the cell, experience what it's like to be alone inside with the sliding metal door closed behind them, then take action.
Many have signed a petition to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba and others have recorded videos about the experience. A couple of those videos have been uploaded to YouTube (see here and here).
“It forces them to think,” says Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, the organization that is bringing Guantanamo Bay to St. Paul. “It forces them to think about what it means to be locked inside a box,” Cox adds, “with no idea when or if” they will be released.
St. Paul is the latest stop for the national tour of the replica, which visited the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week.
One visitor to the St. Paul display, who signed the petition and talked to the Amnesty International representatives, refused to actually walk inside the cell.
“Bad memories,” says Gabriel, a St. Paul resident. The 24-year-old, who says he served five months in county jail, adds that his “holding cell was way bigger than this one.”
Our Web team got reactions from the crowd Wednesday night after Gov. Sarah Palin's acceptance speech. Watch the conversations and hear thoughts on the Alaska governor's hard-hitting speech and how she might fare in a debate with her opponent Sen. Joe Biden.
Ariel and I went Freewheelin today in St. Paul as a follow-up to the story that we did last week at the DNC in Denver.
Aside from the fact that discovering free bikes is one of the top three highlights from our trip, we wanted to do a follow-up because there was a healthy competition between Denver and St. Paul-Minneapolis for number of rides and miles earned.
But more importantly, we didn't ride the bikes in Denver. Today, we more than made up for that in St. Paul.
Pedaling for the Gulf Coast
As part of their ongoing DNC/RNC free bike program, Freewheelin sponsors Bikes Belong and Humana are donating $10 for each mile earned to help with the Hurricane Gustav relief effort in the Gulf Coast.
When we arrived at the bike depot near the Xcel Energy Center, Freewheelin had managed to raise $127,025 this week for the Gulf Coast but they ran into some problems trying to beat Denver's numbers.
Denver logged 5,500 rides and 26,500 miles when the project ended. With five hours left in the week, Minneapolis-St. Paul had logged only 1,818 rides and 12,702 miles.
Bikes Belong Executive Director Tim Blumenthal says that the timing was to blame for the lower totals in the Twin Cities. Monday was Labor Day and many people were visiting the very popular state fair and Tuesday it rained.
But Blumenthal says that the Gulf Coast donations served as a motivation and the week turned out better than they imagined.
Ease On Down the Road
Ariel and I went on a beautiful ride along the Mississippi River, snapped photos of the U.S. Coast Guard and an “Obama” boat, waved at drivers on the street and laughed about how much fun the ride was.
We visited downtown St. Paul, I ducked into Macy's (don't ask) while Ariel snapped some more photos of another Code Pink action near the convention perimeter.
On the way back to the bike depot we headed down a steep hill with tons of traffic. I got off the bike and eased it down the street while Ariel flew down the block, apparently too fast for the police stationed on the corner to notice and warn her that she was turning into heavy traffic.
She had a rough go with the gear-shift, but she managed to make it to the median and out of the path of several big rigs. It took me a little while to catch up.
When we returned to the depot we found that we had raised about $30 each for the hurricane relief effort.
The We Are America DNC Alliance gathered activists, citizens, politicians and entertainers to an Immigrant Rights March past Invesco Field in Denver, CO, on the day that Sen. Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party's nomination for president.
We talked to marchers and organizers, who discussed the purpose and timing of the march and why they feel immigrant rights are human rights.
“There are few other places on television where such intelligent conversation can be found night after night. ”
1,000 shows? Really? That's a whole lot. A lot of guests, a lot of questions, a lot of songs and a lot of laughs. And, of course, a lot of “Keep the faith.” It's hard to contemplate exactly what 1,000 shows is, but the effect is undeniable.
Thursday's episode, a collection of some of Tavis' most memorable conversations of the past five years, highlighted the sheer volume of amazing dialogue the the Tavis Smiley show has created. Whether in conversation with Bill Cosby or Mandy Moore, Ted Kennedy or Carlos Santana, the conversations on the show are thoughtful, frequently funny and always enlightening. Tavis' guests span the culture, from musicians to journalists to politicians to poets, and his questions are equally wide-ranging. No matter who the guest or what the conversation, it is assured to be worth watching.
There are few other places on television where such intelligent conversation can be found night after night. After 1,000 shows, it has become more than clear that this is a place where, whoever the guests, you will hear something thought-provoking discussed.
The venues for intelligent debate in the media seem to be less and less every day, and for television that is especially true. For that reason, the show is a gem. The free exchange of ideas seen there every night, about the country, the world and the role of African Americans in it, is something worth continuing as long as possible.
Congratulations to everyone involved on the first 1,000 shows. May the next 1,000 be even better.
“Rather than stir people into a populist frenzy with grand theatrics and spectacle, Mwanawasa chose subtance over style.”
We might be forgiven for ignoring the rest of the world the last couple of weeks, while our would-be future leaders spoke their minds on the state of our union, belittled each other, and whispered sweet nothings about the glittering promise of America into our collective ears. But despite all of the scandal surrounding McCain and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, the speeches, the delegates and all of the hullabaloo, the world continues to turn, and things outside of America continue to happen that warrant our attention. One item on that list was brought to my attention by the always-noteworthy obituary page in The Economist.
The obit in question eulogizes former Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, that country's third president, who led from 2002 until his death last month. The article describes Mwanawasa's leadership as steady, aboveboard and, most of all, honest. Rather than stir people into a populist frenzy with grand theatrics and spectacle, Mwanawasa chose substance over style. And while his addresses were not the most entertaining, he brought stability to his country. As ZImbabwe's northern neighbour, this is no small feat.
The article suggests that while Mr. Mwanawasa's persona may have been bland ("He lacked charisma, wit or style..."), his leadership was just what his country, and the rest of his region for that matter, required. Africa has seen far more than its share of firebrand populists, who after stirring up voters' emotions to win elections, go on to do nothing but line their own pockets once in office, or worse. The message is quite a clear one: while style tends to win elections, substance is what makes change happen.
And while I'm loathe to bring it back to this (this was supposed to be a post about African politics, not American), this is a message we'd do well to heed here at home, especially at a time like this. After listening to two weeks of speeches, promises and rhetoric, after all the scrutiny of our candidates' characters, likeability and moral fiber, after being whipped into a populist frenzy ourselves, what do we really know about the men (and woman) who seek to lead our nation? The truth is, I fear, very little. Talk is just that; and we won't know how adept Obama or McCain or Palin or Biden will be at getting things done until that day in November when two of them take up their posts in the White House. The only thing that's certain is that Americans--for good or ill--will not vote for a boring candidate.
America is not Zambia, clearly. But maybe there's something to be learned from Mr. Mwanawasa's leadership about politics, promises and the tricky act of bringing change to a nation.
“This is the same man whose campaign just a year ago was financially struggling, and yet managed to come back and secure the nomination of his party. ”
John McCain is by far one of the rarest candidates to go against the grain. He actually aired ads stating that the past 4 years have not been good for the country. So it's only fitting that when the often-called maverick went out to give the most important speech of his life, he chose to move to the beat of a different drum: his own.
The Arizona senator walked onto the Xcel center stage among thousands of supporters. This is the same man whose campaign, roughly a year ago, was financially struggling, and yet managed to come back and secure the nomination of his party. It should be known however, that John McCain isn't the same old Republican type whose party has been in office these past eight years, and he's quick to tell you that.
When McCain presented himself to the Republican Party and voters, he was honest, not bullish. To his party and his supporters, he thanked them for their continued support. To his rivals and fellow Americans on the other side of the aisle, he simply thanked them for their consideration.
He was fired up about the prospect of bringing a relatively unknown governor from Alaska to shake things up in Washington. He then told voters at home who his real interest in Washington was: the American people.
McCain described himself in his youth as a man who was selfish. Since those days, his values have changed and his focus is now fighting for the men and women across the country. He mentioned men and women like Bill and Sue Nebe in Michigan, who are struggling due to the housing market. He spoke of families that are struggling, and how as president he would never forget them in the White House.
McCain also addressed policy issues which were critical to voters watching Thursday evening. He talked about cutting excess spending in Washington, job retraining for American workers and energy solutions for the country.
He promised voters he will change government assistance programs for the unemployed, once he takes office. He'll make sure that workers find jobs that actually stay in the country.
He continued his speech with confidence and purpose. He left the audience with a fiery passion for his own version of change and urged Americans to fight for what they believe in. He was met with a resounding applause and cheers from an audience ready to put their maverick in the White House.
For skeptical Republican voters, assessing the senator's pitch to the American public was a huge deal. However, if they came into John McCain's speech Thursday night with an open mind, and ready to listen, they just may have found themselves a worthy presidential nominee.
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