After intently watching three nights of carefully crafted speeches by the party's most prominent political and business leaders, I came to the conclusion that the Republican Party, is, in fact, "an organization without organization". At no time was I convinced that the speakers, delegates, and Presidential nominee himself were on the same ideological page with each other, let alone with themselves. The sole purpose of the convention was to nominate Mitt Romney for President and rally behind him and his proposed platform. But what we really witnessed was a totally disjointed cacophony of conflicting visions for America. The Tampa Bay Times Forum was essentially transformed into a real life Tower of Babel, populated by Tea Party patriots, meandering moderates, insatiable libertarians, and even the occasional liberal sympathizer.
The discordant nature of the convention was already evident after the first night of speeches. Take, for example, these two quotes from the back-to-back speeches delivered by Ann Romney and Chris Christie on Tuesday night. These particular quotes highlight the central themes of their respective speeches:
"I want to talk to you from my heart about our hearts. I want to talk about not what divides us, but what holds us together as an American family... I want to talk to you about love. I want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I met at a dance many years ago. And the profound love I have and I know we share for this country."
-Ann Romney
"I believe we have become paralyzed by our desire to be loved. Our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity is fleeting and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and emotions of the times."
-Chris Christie
Ann Romney called upon the nation to make love a central part of our family lives and political ideologies, lauding it as a force that can dissolve grudges and open pathways to communication. Then, not even 15 minutes after Mrs. Romney had concluded her speech, the consistently blunt and uncompromising governor of New Jersey washed that message away in favor of his own. Christie took swipes at love's apparently overbearing role in 21st century America, and called for a more realistic approach to problem solving, an approach that should be rooted more in mutual respect for one another, rather than love. If these speeches had been delivered on different nights, this stark contrast would've been less apparent. But since they were delivered in succession, the conflicting positions of Mrs. Romney and Christie stood out prominently, and this set the tone for the rest of the fractured convention.
Tuesday evening was also the first night of the Ron Paul Revolution's last stand in Tampa Bay. After soldiering ahead with their so-called "campaign for liberty" long after the Texas congressman's realistic chances of securing the Republican nomination had faded, Ron Paul's base was determined to have their voices heard, loudly, at the GOP convention. And the Paulite delegates that chose to attend the convention were loud, jarring the convention on a couple of occasions. On Tuesday afternoon, during the largely symbolic roll call vote of the states, Ron Paul delegates directed boos, jeers, and the occasional middle finger towards the convention's podium. One of them even shouted "Fuck you, tyrants!" at Speaker of the House John Boehner and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, underscoring the Paulite notion that the nefarious Mitt Romney and his insider cronies somehow stole the nomination away from its rightful owner, Ron Paul. Then, On Wednesday night, Ron Paul delegates interrupted Senator John McCain's speech by chanting "As goes Maine, so goes the nation!". This was an allusion to the fact that Maine's delegation, which was originally made up entirely of Paul delegates, was scrapped by the Republican establishment and replaced with an all-Romney delegation. Even though all of this rebellious excitement received limited attention in the mainstream press, it definitely didn't go unnoticed at the convention itself, and the Paulites' antics served as more than just a minor distraction.
Wednesday night's key event was the speech delivered by Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a speech that was stylistically efficient, but devoid of tangible facts for the GOP to hammer on. In fact, the speech was panned by most media outlets for it's factual inaccuracies, inaccuracies that even the conservative mouthpiece that is Fox News couldn't totally sweep under the rug. As Sally Kohn mentions in a Fox News.com piece, Ryan blamed President Obama's economic policies for the downgrading of America's credit rating last August. In actuality, the downgrade occurred because Standard & Poor's was extremely nervous about the Republican Congress' threat to not raise the nation's debt ceiling. Ryan also blamed Obama for failing to save a GM plant that supposedly closed during his time in office, when it actually closed in December 2008. Obviously, George W. Bush was still the Commander in Chief at that time. Ryan, it seemed, didn't have enough red meat at his disposal to craft a speech around, so he made up factual inaccuracies in the hopes that they would go unnoticed.
They didn't. And now he appears to be confused, shameless, or both.
But nothing Ryan could have said would've made him look more shameless and clueless than Clint Eastwood did during the most awkward 12 minute improv session in U.S. history. Eastwood, who was booked as a last minute fill-in speaker due to Ron Paul's refusal to address the convention, was expected to deliver a rousing speech with a Grand Torino meets Dirty Harry flavor. What he did instead, though, won't be forgotten anytime soon. Eastwood spent 12 long minutes ranting aimlessly at an empty chair, a chair that President Obama was, at least in Eastwood's mind, sitting in. This rant, which lacked any real critical thoughts or ideas, seemed to befuddle many of its spectators, including Paul and Janna Ryan. At times, Eastwood even seemed to endorse liberal policies, such as closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and ending the war in Afghanistan "tomorrow morning". Those demands probably sent the neoconservatives in attendance into seizures.
Eastwood's piecemeal, free form address was an enormous flop that only served as a major distraction from the final night's climatic event: Mitt Romney's acceptance of the GOP Presidential nomination, and his subsequent acceptance speech. As expected, Romney's speech was fairly bland and straightforward, hitting on the right buzzwords for automatic applause ("repeal Obamacare", "strong military" "importance of the family", etc.) and it avoided more controversial waters, such as budget specifics and hot button social issues.
But even though Romney occasionally promoted the stereotypical American conservative manifesto, he mostly appeared to be a man divided against himself, something he's been accused of in the past. For instance, he scolded President Obama for sending coal mining jobs overseas to China. Then, just moments later, he lauded Apple as a company that's spurring American ingenuity and innovation. Now don't get me wrong, I am an owner of an iPhone, iPad, and iPod, and I love each of those products. But giving Apple a pat on the back for supporting America is a terrible fallacy. Apple has shipped thousands upon thousands of manufacturing jobs to brutal sweatshops in China. Mitt Romney's assertion that Apple is the ideal 21st century American corporation is inaccurate, and it's hypocritical of him to support them and then blast Obama over outsourcing.
Romney also said that he wished "President Obama had succeeded" as President. This was, perhaps, the most laughable contradiction of the entire mixed-message convention. If Mitt Romney had wanted President Obama to succeed, he wouldn't have started exploring a 2012 Presidential run in early 2011, just two short years after Obama had taken the oath of office. If Mitt Romney had truly wanted Obama to succeed, he also wouldn't have actively sought the Presidential nomination of the party that has been openly impeding and smearing the President since January 20, 2009. And if Mitt Romney had truly wanted Obama to succeed, he most certainly wouldn't have been addressing a convention hall full of people that have portrayed Obama as a communist, racist, religion hating Kenyan since 2008. Sending well wishes to Barack Obama is completely antithetical to the GOP mantra, and it's laughable that Romney believes most Republicans wanted to see Obama's "hope and change" become a reality. The status quo was, and still is, the ultimate goal.
By Friday morning, after the confetti and balloons had rained down upon Mitt Romney and his flimsy core of supporters, only one thing was clear: Behind all of the faux confidence and bravado, the GOP is really at an ideological crossroads. And instead of choosing one path walk down, they are attempting to awkwardly waddle down three different paths at once. It's a totally unsustainable strategy that serves as a perfect metaphor for modern day American conservatism.
It's an ideology that refuses to fully embrace the mainstream or extreme, with a candidate that has continually rejected unwavering principles throughout his political career. Such a jumbled package cannot and will not gain control of the Oval Office in November.
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