Democratic Convention

Are you watching the convention? Are you organizing drinking games where whenever somebody on the podium says "change," you take a shot? If you are, I doubt you'll be able to make it past one or two speeches. It just makes me want to change the channel. Not that I'm against change--actually, as a conservative, by definition I guess I am against change--but I don't want Obama's "change." Plus, I don't think he's really going change anything. It's a lot of fluff without much substance.

But I digress. Back to the convention...

I actually thought both Michelle Obama's and Hillary Clinton's speeches were pretty good in terms of delivering what they were supposed to.

Mark Warner's speech on the other hand was tedious and boring. Plus, Warner's basic theme about this being an election for the future and not the past could be given next week at the Republican Convention. In case you missed it, Warner first talked about his past about as businessman where after two failed businesses he got into the cell phone industry and became successful. That's a good story but I think it speaks more to the Republican issues about how people can be successful on their own and don't need the government babysitting them, raising their taxes, or regulating them.

Then, Warner tried to point out how he believes America can be an economic leader in the 21st century and how he brought hi-tech jobs to his state of Virginia. I agree with him, but I don't see how Obama's policies are designed to do that. In the primaries, Obama was promising to renegotiate NAFTA and promising protectionism. If the US follows that path, I can guarantee you we're going to lose our economic leadership position. Free trade benefits the United States by bringing foreign jobs into the United States, supplying the US with cheaper goods which overwhelmingly benefit those with lower incomes, making us more economically competitive, and opening up markets to American companies. As a former chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, McCain understands this. McCain understands that economic competition can make the United States stronger and believes that individual Americans are strong enough and capable enough to compete in a globalized world. I'm not sure Obama as a former community leader in Chicago really understands this point.

Finally, we heard a lot from all the speakers about how a McCain presidency would mean 4 more years of George Bush. They like to throw around that McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. That is true over the 8 years, but Obama voted with Bush 40% of the time in 2007. In addition, McCain voted with Bush only 77% of the time in 2005. In my opinion, what is more important than votes are the number of times McCain has criticized Bush's policies, be it on the war in Iraq when McCain called for more troops a couple of years earlier than Bush's surge announcement or McCain's calling for Guantanamo to be closed or McCain's criticism of Bush's Medicare prescription drug plan because of its cost. The point I'm trying to make is that you may not agree with McCain on every issue but you can't say that McCain will blindly follow Bush's policies.

This is kind of mean, but when I saw the tribute to Ted Kennedy on Monday night and the whole water metaphor, I couldn't stop thinking about Chappaquiddick.

Next week, I'll be at the Republican Convention and I'll give you a few posts on what the RNC looks like from the Twin Cities.