tea berry-blue

My family went to the Durham Fair today. We looked at the goats and chickens and stuff, and the crafts and my mother and I picked out what breeds of chickens we are getting for the farm.

Anyway, the local political parties both had booths. The local Republicans were selling pork sandwiches, andI question their judgment in selling pork with all the pork barrel accusations going around, but whatever.

The Democrats, on the other hand, had a life-szed cardboard cutout of Barack Obama and they were using it to sell Jamaican meat patties. One guy was standing behind it and mimicking a Barack Obama voice and being all, "Buy delicious meat patties! MMM they're my favorite!" or slinging his arm around them and being like "BUY SENATOR OBAMA'S FAVORITE MEAT PATTIES."

So they were generally being really funny and we have no problem giving $3 to the local Democrats. But we'd already eaten, so we found my dad and told him the story, and offered it to him.

And my daddy was all, "I don't know. I'm afraid of what might be in a Barack Obama meat patty."

And I replied, "IT'S FULL OF HOPE AND CHANGE, DADDY."

Sadly, he did not want to taste the hope and change. Aw.

So, I didn't get Mitt Romney's speech at all. Especially when he says things like "We need Big Ideas, not Big Brother."

Which I know what he meant by it, but when the Bush administration has been accused of spying on people and killing our rights as much as they have, it doesn't get across the message I think he was intending to make.

Another thing that weirded me out about Romney's speech-- he talks about how the Democratic party wants to take our rights away and then two minutes later is talking about keeping pornography out of homes. I generally think that on that count, the Republican party is much more interested in stepping in and regulating freedoms than the Democratic party is-- the only one that the Democratic party really cares about is gun control. And I realize that that is really super important to a lot of people, but no one is trying to take away hunting rifles.

Huckabee, on the other hand, man. I wish he didn't have so many crazy Fundamentalist leanings, because man, he's brilliant. And he's such a great speaker. I didn't agree with everything in his speech, but when he's not talking about his religion, he's fabulous to listen to and so smart.

Rudy is being Rudy-- I think he's too vitriolic to be going right before Sarah Palin...they should have had him go early to warm up the crowd, I think. I love Rudy and I kind of wanted him to get the nomination, and then have Bloomberg run independently...just because the Black, Jew, and Italian running for President jokes would have been awesome.

Except for this Islamic terrorism thing? Umm, who are they insulting? How about Muslims? And we're not mentioning September 11th because that was seven years ago and we need to move on. Jesus, Rudy, I know it was your time in the sun, but please get the hell over it.

Okay, now he just got nasty. Rudy, stop making New Yorkers look bad. This is exactly what the rest of the country already thinks we're like. I want to listen to Huckabee again.

Okay, Sarah Palin. I think this will be interesting because it's really our first time hearing her, even if the speech was written before she was selected.

I remember when Bill Clinton first started running for President and I kept wanting to slap his hand down. It would drive me nuts watching him because he kept making hand motions while speaking. Sarah Palin needs to learn not to roll her lips while she's on national TV; that surprises me because of her TV experience.

This speech so far seems perfectly decent but kind of bland?

Ooh, actually, she has a nephew on a carrier in the Gulf-- one of my cousins is doing that now; I want to find out which one he's on.

Also her youngest daughter is adorable.

This whole speech is a little weird, because it feels more like a biography/introduction than a real speech? I know this is the first time many people have heard her, but I feel like I would rather they'd gotten Rudy to coach her. She's not even delivering her vitriolic lines with vitriol, which makes her just sound like a lecturey professor.

And she really, really doesn't want to attack the media in her first major speech on the national scale? Is this to throw people off when the media criticizes her so she can be all "well, the media's criticizing me because I won't pander to them?" Because I am honestly starting to believe this is a strategic thing.

Okay, eBay joke? Funny. Actually, that whole section was funny and as a big fan of Mike Bloomberg, I appreciate people in positions of privilege who refuse luxuries they don't need.

Why is she still misrepresenting her fiscal history, though? She shouldn't be talking about that when she's been called out on it as many times as she has.

The energy talk is a good move, though. This is obviously where her expertise is, although I'm not sure I feel comfortable with it coming from someone who is known for earmarks to her own town-- is she just going to be giving more money back to her home state at the expense of other states? She went from highlighting everything well to turning this back into Alaskan interests.

I like all the talk about things being produced by American workers when she wants to pay Canada for that.

Okay, and she just likened Obama to...Moses? And it's weird that she's not using his name.

I haven't had any more comments since then because I think I'm going back to my earlier statement that it's not a BAD speech, but it's not a super impressive one and I feel that it's kind of canned. She's repeating things that previous speakers already said or things we've heard from McCain himself before and I'm a little disappointed because I was hoping we'd get more of a sense of her own individual identity from this.

I think if I were rating that speech like a movie? I would rate it about a 2, maybe 2 1/2 stars-- not offensively bad, but nothing new and kind of bland. The half is because it's her first one. In relation, I think I'd give Romney and Giuliani both 1 1/2-- Romney was just really off, and Giuliani is a good speaker but it was not a likable speech and poorly positioned. Huckabee wins with definitely a 4-star speech and the best of the night.