After two long weeks, both the Republican and Democratic national conventions are over. Of course, both conventions featured their dramas. The Republicans had Hurricane Isaac and Clint Eastwood. The Democrats fumbled with last second changes to their platform and Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s stumbling over her own words.
Why does all of this matter? For many of us, this is the first opportunity to see the candidates lay out their positions for the coming months. For Mitt Romney, who has had a hard time connecting with voters, the convention was an opportunity to convey his personal side. For President Obama, it was an opportunity to inject enthusiasm into his base. In order to decide who to support this season, it is imperative to know what the candidates have been saying.
I’ll start off with the Republican convention. I’ll admit that I wasn’t able to see I didn’t see Clint Eastwood as the most important speaker of the night. Sure, he shouldn’t have been allowed to speak. However, his frankly stupid remarks do not define the Republican party or their convention. I personally thought that the most powerful speakers were before prime time. A couple from Romney’s church spoke of their son, who died of cancer. Governor Romney helped their son through his terminal illness, frequently visiting him and even writing his will. This somehow seemed more relevant to Mitt Romney than Clint Eastwood’s off-the-cuff remarks.
I was not particularly enthralled with Romney’s speech. He didn’t match the efforts of previous speakers in making him personable. However, it did allow Romney to make some key points.
It was a smart move for Romney to argue that our national debt was a huge problem. In fact, it seemed that the growing debt was a point of emphasis at the convention. Opposite the stage, hoisted high above the hall, was a debt clock, counting the mind boggling amount of money owed by our government. Speakers like vice presidential pick Paul Ryan argued that the U.S. debt is detrimental to the economy.
The United States has a debt of more than $16 trillion. However, at the Democratic convention, this didn’t seem to be the main topic of discussion. Instead, almost every speaker I heard asserted that Romney intends to lower taxes on the wealthiest Americans. However, just a few days after the DNC, Romney stated the exact opposite on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” program. Romney maintained that he will eliminate loopholes on corporate taxes, lower taxes on middle class Americans, and keep taxes on the wealthiest Americans at current or increased levels. It would seem as though these speakers should think about rescinding their statements.
On the whole, the DNC was fairly negative. After all, what else can the president run on? The recovery has been sluggish and the new jobs report doesn’t contain much good news. In the report, unemployment dropped from 8.3 %, to 8.1%, this was only because about 300,000 people stopped looking for work and were therefore not counted in the survey. Not exactly encouraging.
