The Democratic National Convention, Part I

*Written by Rob Rimes.

1. Introduction:

Well, the Republicans had their day in the sun last week, so it was only fitting that the Democrats would also get theirs. I mean, after all that anti-Obama rhetoric, the Democrats certainly weren’t going to use this opportunity to not hurl insults back while defending their horrible failed policies. Don’t get me wrong, the Republicans’ policies aren’t necessarily successful either and that really just adds more of an entertainment value to the heated and unabashed comments of both parties who are further divided now, than they have ever been.

As I always say, I do have to give credit where credit is due. So with that said, I’ve got to give props to the Democrats for having a much better stage. Their presentation just seemed more high tech, more efficient and more stylish. I guess Mitt Romney’s Olympic expertise that helped develop the Republican National Convention’s visual appearance last week, was kicked in the balls by whichever techie-hipster threw the Democrats’ stage together. Well done, whoever was behind this design! It made better use of the space and worked in a way that made the Democrats’ arena seem more crowded. The two set-ups are like comparing the stage of a community theatre opera house to that of WWE’s Monday Night Raw. I almost kind of expected “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to burst through one of the screens, give a dozen delegates the “Stone Cold Stunner” and then pour beer down his bare chest while flicking off and cursing at the crowd. Alas, that awesome moment never came but one was on the edge of their seat in anticipation for some serious shit popping off.

The Democrats, leading into their Convention, came under a lot of fire by the conservative media and the religious right for not including the word “God” in their platform. My god (pun intended), Fox News and nearly every pundit on their staff was in a serious uproar about this. Frankly, I couldn’t give two shits. It is pretty well-known that I am against politics and religion being bed buddies and trying to include God in American politics has always proven to be a bad idea. I was totally fine with the Democrats not mentioning God and contrary to what the conservative media and the religious right wanted you to think, not mentioning God doesn’t mean that you are anti-God and I don’t think the Democrats are. The Democrats just get the fact that we aren’t in a Christian nation, we do not have a theocracy and forcing people to have to participate in Christian activities is wrong – especially when our nation is made up of many religious faiths, spiritual beliefs, agnosticism and atheism. Personally, I believe in science, evidence and fact but you don’t see me getting pissed when politicians aren’t praying to test tubes.

One thing I will criticize the Democrats for, is the president’s idiotic inclusion of Kal Penn in the Democratic National Convention. Now I know that Mr. Penn was the Obama Administration’s Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement – whatever the fuck that means, as well as a co-chair to the president’s campaign this year but including him and airing the video that promoted his involvement at the DNC was just ridiculous! To keep it real, Obama’s video promo where he is telling Kal Penn, who is sitting next to his ‘Harold and Kumar’ co-star John Cho, to make sure that he makes it to the big show while he and his buddy are obviously high on pot, is a fucking slap in the face of all the people sitting in prison next to rapists and murderers simply because they are non-violent casual drug users. Obama is trying to appeal to the stoner voter but is completely ingenuous about it, as he is one of the biggest pro-Drug War presidents we have ever had. While his administration kicks in doors, raids private residences, raids legal dispensaries and carts non-violent offenders off to prison, this man is essentially saying, “Hey dudes, it’s cool. Never mind that shit, let’s light up this “j” and go vote together.” Fuck him for that and really, fuck Kal Penn who is a pothead poser and an establishment cockpuppet. Penn is the worst kind of fame whore.

So with the riffraff out of the way, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the DNC. Charlotte, North Carolina was unglued and the Obama supporters were out in full force. So let’s get into Day One.

2. Day One, Part I – Leading Up to the First Lady:

To start, it was much harder getting a full grasp of the Democratic National Convention compared to last week’s Republican National Convention, as less speeches seemed to be featured and more time was spent on media folk talking, giving analysis of the speeches we couldn’t watch in their entirety and interviewing random people while speakers were at the podium. It was kind of disheartening, as I am one of those people that wants to sit back and enjoy the freak show in all of its glory but instead, was forced to sit through dozens of pundits’ talking points. I will however talk about the bits that I did see, whether live on television or watched afterwards via YouTube. The segments I saw on Day One were the quick speeches from the Democratic Party’s congressional women leaders, the Jimmy Carter video and then the speeches by Joe Kennedy III, James E. Clyburn, Rahm Emanuel, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The first bit I saw was Nancy “Skeletor” Pelosi emceeing a quick little shindig for the Democratic congressional women. This short portion of the DNC included a few words from Rosa DeLauro, Carolyn Maloney, Allyson Schwartz, Gwen Moore, Nydia Velázquez, Tulsi Gabbard and Joyce Beatty. The gist of the thing was to promote equality for women and to move America forward. DeLauro and the rest wanted equal wages, equal opportunity, this and that. Cool, I’m all for that but just like every solution that liberals have, these women want people to support the government in its attempt to force new laws of equality on private businesses. I get it though, women and every other group that feels like it isn’t treated fairly wants a fair shot. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and I believe that business owners should treat everyone equally. If they don’t, they’re a bunch of pricks in my book. What I do have a problem with though, is this idea that it is government’s job to force people to comply to these things: it’s not. You can’t enforce social morality (or any morality really) and to do so is just as bad as those on the right who want to enforce their religious bullshit on the rest of us.

Next up was a video by the former United States President Jimmy Carter. Carter, who has been referred to as the worst still-living former president by conservatives for years is a nice and humble guy. While I don’t know a whole lot about his policies and economic decisions during one of the lowest points in U.S. history, as I was born in December of 1978, I have always respected the guy and I have always enjoyed listening to him.

When the video started, Jimmy Carter came off as classy, eloquent and talked about the essence of the American spirit from the liberal perspective. The problem with the video was that it turned into a puff piece to promote Obama. I get it though and I’m not going to jump down his throat about it but I’d rather him talk about policy, ideals and solutions more than pimping out the current president. I mean shit, Obama has done nothing but prove that he is incapable of doing the job effectively. Then again, this is Jimmy Carter – the guy who is heralded as the worst president in the last forty or so years. Personally, I’d probably give that distinction to Nixon, Bush II or even Obama. But it’s cool, President Carter is just doing the job he was asked to do and he is trying his damnedest to keep the leader of his party in power; I certainly can’t fault him for that. I guess I just expect more from the former leaders of this country. I was hoping for something more enlightening and possibly profound but I got Obama buddy love instead.

Further into the show, we were treated to a tribute video of Ted Kennedy. Love the guy or hate the guy, he was a legend and has stamped his legacy on the face of American politics forever. It was inspiring to watch and even though I don’t agree with Ted Kennedy on most things – politically, I respect the guy, as I do the Kennedy Family, because regardless of the bad shit, scandals, deaths, tragedy and alcoholism – those are just real life problems that many Americans face daily. The good of the Kennedy Family far outweighs the bad and they are and maybe always will be, to some degree, an American institution. The highlight of the video package was seeing Ted Kennedy going toe-to-toe with Mitt Romney in a debate from years ago, where Kennedy beat Romney to keep his U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts for an incredible sixth term!

Following the video, we were treated to a few words from Joe Kennedy III, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy. JK3 definitely looks the part! He looks like the Kennedy’s of old, he’s got youth and exuberance on his side and he is very well-spoken. I guess it is a good thing for the Democratic Party that he is running for a congressional seat in the 4th district of Massachusetts. JK3 could be one of the next big leaders to rise up out of nowhere for the Democrats. People need to keep their eye on this kid.

During his speech he talked about his Uncle Ted and how he and Ted went to Illinois and helped campaign for Obama, even though no one at the time cared about then senatorial candidate Obama. He talked about the values and principles of Ted Kennedy and how they are a large part of the Democratic Party’s platform today. Now while JK3 only spoke for maybe three minutes, his short speech was impactful and a great tribute to his Uncle. He also put a face on the next generation of Kennedy’s, who may be around for a long time: sticking thorns in the sides of Republicans for decades to come.

James E. Clyburn, the congressman from South Carolina gave the next notable speech that I was able to catch. He started with, “Fifty-two years ago, President Kennedy accepted our party’s nomination saying, ‘We are not here to curse the darkness; we are here to light a candle.’ This is the fundamental difference between the party of President Obama and the party of Romney-Ryan.” Clyburn used this to build up Obama and tear down the Romney-Ryan team. He talked of how the Republicans are essentially always standing in the way of progress while Obama and the Democrats continually work towards pushing America forward. Clyburn is a well-spoken dude and his speech is effective, if one subscribes to the school of thought of the typical progressive Democrat, but to count off Obama’s successes and to blatantly ignore the truth while doing so, is ridiculous and going to raise the ire of those who aren’t sheepish partisan hacks.

Obama has not ended the Iraq War. He claims he has but there are still troops there and operations are going on as normal, as if nothing has changed. Sure, there are less troops but that doesn’t necessarily mean that our actions and our agenda have changed. All it means is that our actions and agenda have just gotten a bit smaller. As far as working towards bringing the Afghan War to a close, I haven’t seen evidence of that and frankly, we’ve been droning the shit out of them. Speaking of which, we’ve been droning the shit out of a lot of places under Obama. He’s even got an official “kill list” and while going down that list, he was responsible for the death of a 16-year-old boy who just happened to be with his terrorist father, albeit American citizen, when the Obama Administration’s drone attacked. Hell, we invaded fucking Libya under the leadership of Obama and we’re talking about hitting Syria and Iran. One for “humanitarian” reasons and the other to stop “weapons of mass destruction” – a road we went down before that Obama was vehemently opposed to as a senator. Clyburn needs to shut the fuck up and not pimp out Obama’s war record because the facts are the facts and homie loves bombing bitches.

So, as we move forward in the night, we get a speech by the Mayor of Chicago and former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The first thing Mayor Emanuel said was, “From President Obama’s hometown of Chicago, it is my honor to speak to you about the president I served.” Jesus dude, that’s the first lie already. Obama lived in Chicago for awhile but it is not his “hometown”. I mean, ignoring the lame birther argument, Barry O was born in Hawaii. He also lived in Seattle, moved around a lot, went to some schools and didn’t settle in in Chicago until the mid-80′s. He was born in 1961. Chicago? Hometown? Nope.

Rahm Emanuel goes on to describe what it was like working in the White House under Obama. He hit the obvious points about leadership, values, principles, blah, blah, blah. He rehashed the economic crisis of 2008 and talked about our men and women in uniform. He mentioned how wars and recession are once-in-a-generation problems and how we are “fortunate” enough to have a “once-in-a-generation president”. This led into him talking about our economic successes under Obama and how “change” was delivered. The cock-fluffing goes on for about ten minutes and the crowd erupts.

Fast-forward, this brings us to our keynote speaker, The Mayor of San Antonio Julian Castro. Castro, whether this was intentional or not, is very reminiscent of the Republican Party’s Marco Rubio – who gave a very well-received speech at the Republican National Convention a week prior. Now was having Castro speak because of his similarities to Rubio in appearance, their backgrounds, their first language and their charisma a political ploy? Were the Democrats trying to pull some of the attention away from Marco Rubio who some would have to assume was able to attract a lot of latino voters? Well, who cares? I certainly don’t but it has been a point raised by many on the right.

Castro, with a gargantuan smile chimed in:

My fellow Democrats, my fellow Texans, my fellow Americans:I stand before you tonight as a young American, a proud American, of a generation born as the Cold War receded, shaped by the tragedy of 9/11, connected by the digital revolution and determined to re-elect the man who will make the 21st century another American century—President Barack Obama.

Oh here we go with the Obama worship. Jesus, the Democrats talk as much praise about Obama as the Republicans bashed him last week. Point being, both parties cannot stop talking about Obama. Do they talk about solutions? Nope, neither party does except to say that they’ve got them.

Castro told us the backstory of his family and how he got to where he is today. It is like all the rest from the Democratic side and the Republican side. The family immigrated to America, they all worked hard, they all sacrificed, the older generation made it possible for the younger generation to succeed while teaching them the value of hard work, etc. I’m not, at all, making light of Castro’s story but it isn’t an unusual one and honestly, it is typical of most families in America. We can all relate to it somehow, as our family lineages didn’t start in America. Hell, even the Native Americans came from elsewhere back in the day.

He moved on to talk about the middle class. Castro said that people have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps but unlike the Republicans, the Democrats are willing to offer a helping hand because sometimes people need that. Here comes the rhetoric, Democrats champion in the “government is here to help” mantra while painting the Republicans as the uncaring, unwilling evil entity that just leaves people to wallow in their own misfortune. This is all just sad really and it is also just wrong for multiple reasons. The first being the idea that government is a helping hand when in reality, government is usually the man behind the curtain flipping switches and creating the problems to begin with. The second is that, apparently unbeknownst to Democrats, the Republicans like government solutions too. Maybe they don’t turn to government as quickly as Democrats do but they are just as guilty of the same thing.

Castro’s point about the government and people working together led into talk about the government needing to step up in the field of education. Great, a progressive Democrat is calling for MORE government involvement in the education industry. Of course, he is completely ignoring the facts, the history and the evidence that pretty solidly states that the more government interferes and the more money they spend in education, the worse the results are. Public schools in America are a fucking disgrace. Union thugs are our children’s teachers and because of that, we can never push out the bad apples. Length of tenure, regardless of performance, dictates who rises to the top leadership spots in our schools. Money is wasted to the point where many bad apples at the top of the ladder make pretty fat bank and the athletic programs often times take precedence over education itself. The government-run public school system is shit and has proven to be shit for decades now. Yet the Democrats want to continue to use the exact same solutions that haven’t worked! What the fuck?! Money isn’t a fix-all, that much is blatantly apparent. You can’t just pour cash all over our injured education system like warm water over a fucking boo-boo.

Castro then goes on to bash the Ryan Plan but of course, being a progressive Democrat, he bashes it for the wrong reasons and not the right ones. He asks a series of stupid questions which call for audience participation. With every question to the crowd, the arena answers with a loud, “NOOOO!” Jesus Christ, Julian are you going to make them start repeating “yes yes y’all!”? Is this guy the Mayor of San Antonio or is he the second coming of Doug E. Fresh? He then drops this line:

Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it. But Barack Obama gets it. He understands that when we invest in people we’re investing in our shared prosperity.

Shared prosperity? Fuck you Marxist!

Castro then spends a few minutes sucking the president’s dick and I completely lose interest in this gay pinko commie affair.

3. Day One, Part II – The First Lady Rallies the Sheep:

I’ve been pretty hard on the First Lady over the years but honestly, I think I have been more than justified in labeling her a “vacation-loving food Nazi“. Sure, my choice of words are strong but considering that she spends much of her time on incredibly lavish vacations with the kids and a staff of dozens on the taxpayers’ dime while telling us to pay more taxes and give more for the “common good” makes her look like a complete asshole. Also, the fact that she wants to rob our children of Happy Meal toys, ban sugary drinks and completely take away our own choices really sets me the fuck off. Who the hell is she and what the fuck gives her the right to tell us what we can and can’t put into our own bodies. She certainly believes that women have domain over their own bodies when it comes to abortion but everyone else can’t have domain over their own bodies when it comes to a fucking doughnut?

Now I do respect her, as I do the president. Maybe it’s because I respect the office itself and everything that surrounds it. With Michelle however, I know that she is most likely a good person and her actions do come from a good place, I can’t fault her for that. I can fault her for the idiocy of her actions though and that is the real issue here. The problem though, is that her philosophy stems from the same bullshit tired philosophy of every progressive in that arena. She believes that it is government’s job to manage as many aspects of our daily lives as it can because government knows best and it will save us from our own bad decisions. Any logical person should be able to conclude that nothing is further from the truth. Michelle Obama is the Queen of the Nanny State, plain and simple.

Anyway, Lady O came out to an energized arena, she looked beautiful and radiant and all of those things that one would expect to emanate from a First Lady. She talked about traveling (go figure) and all the great people she has met in her travels. She went on to discuss how Americans are struggling, as she has seen this first hand from her beach villa in Spain. This was all a set up though so she could move on to talk about the struggles that both she and her husband went through growing up and how it was those struggles that brought them together and inspired them to help save every person in the country from their struggles. Damn, that’s a lot of struggling.

Mrs. Obama talked about family values and all the other canned stuff First Lady’s usually talk about in these situations. She spoke about how her husband gets it, is compassionate and can relate to the everyday person. There is not much about her speech that wasn’t unexpected and unfortunately, it never really gave us anything new or profound. I mean, I didn’t expect Michelle Obama to come out and change my mind about where to place my vote but I expected the ante to be upped and for the speech to carry more than just the same old stuff. In the end, she delivered a speech that failed to give the Democrats any sort of edge over the Republicans – not that they necessarily need it, mind you. She certainly spoke well, carried herself greatly and did good with what she did say but it was want she didn’t say that hurt her case. I personally didn’t feel the connection to her that I did with Ann Romney last week.

It’s not that Michelle Obama isn’t genuine or a bad speaker, I think she is a great speaker and has great leadership qualities but they are unfortunately stifled by her nanny state philosophy. I just think that she doesn’t like the job of First Lady, which she has actually admitted, and I think she is tired. But then again, at the risk of sounding like a prick, she does get more vacation time than everyone in my office combined. In the end though, the speeches of Michelle Obama and Ann Romney will hold little to no weight come Election Day in less than two months.

4. Day Two, Part I – Pelosi, Hoyer, Frank & Warren – The Four Horsemen of the Dempocalypse:

CONTINUED in “The Democratic National Convention, Part II“.