The Warm Up Acts

There wasn’t a whole lot today to get excited about in the opening acts.

The back-to-back CEO speeches by Carly Fiorina and Med Whitman were flat and while substantive, most ignored by the crowd. It’s striking that the two most substantive addresses were probably the worst received. Then again, the bio line “from California” might have sent folks packing.

Mitt Romney got sustained applause but frankly his argument was a bit convoluted – he advocated on behalf of change… from a “liberal Washington to a conservative Washington” apparently blaming all of the economic and international challenges on 20 months of a Democratic Congress. This is the same Congress that has been berated here as “do nothing”. Isn’t it “either/or”?

Anyway, Mitt suggested that voters “throw out the big government liberals.”

And in the line of the night (in that it would be more applicable if given by a Democratic in reference to the Bush administration than the converse) was “it’s time for the party of big ideas, not the party of big brother.” Amen, Mitt.

Mike Huckabee did himself some good. The delegates seemed openly a bit reticent when he began, but warmed up quickly and he turned the crowd around. He suggested that Obama brought back “European ideas” from Europe on his trip, which is probably the first time he’s been attacked as “too European” in this election. But the crowd loved it anyway. He struck me as the Brian Schweitzer of this convention. Not sure that the substance was really there, but came across as very genuine and likable.

Then Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle gave a relatively bland defense of Governor Palin’s record as mayor and governor. However, she did get delegates excited by suggesting that the Obama/Biden ticket has “no executive experience… Zero” The delegates took that cue and began chanting “Zero” at every reference to Obama. Pretty funny stuff. But some of the red meat was bizarre – like the argument that Alaska has as many electoral votes as Delaware and that it’s 120 times larger in size. But she seemed to give away the playbook in asserting that Palin is a strong social conservative, fiscal hawk, and proponent of free market economics, but could reach out to independents, young people, and women. I’m sure of the first three, but not certain about the last three.

The last warmup act was Rudy Guiliani. I have to admit that I don’t get the appeal. He dished out a lot of attacks on Obama, but most were off the mark. And the line that Democrats are in a “state of denial” about September 11th seemed sad given how his “all 9/11 candidacy” flamed out.

He did hit Obama in two places that I would expect to see repeated in the fall: a reference to Obama’s contention that some people “cling to guns and religion” and a rant against Islamic terrorism and the complaint that Democrats will not explicitly call it that (this might become the “flag pin” of the 2008 election.

My most favorite moment of the night… (and I am ABSOLUTELY not embellishing here) when Rudy praised McCain’s line about the conflict with Russia that “we are all Georgians” … the Georgia delegation gave a prolonged standing ovation. OOPS!