Minneapolis Open Thread

"shocking. i'm walking thru the xcel center...and almost no one is here."

hehe.

the hurricanes give the GOP an excuse for a poorly attended convention, otherwise it would look really bad to have a convention where no one shows up.

I'm watching bears on Animal Planet.

doing volunteer relief work for the hurricane victims.

Or maybe it was reworking the oil-futures section of their investment portfolios, I forget which.

Really, the only thing I’m looking forward to is the Palin speech. A full 15 minutes of that C-sharp screech those dulcet tones should provide immense comic relief inspiration.

I couldn't sit through the Democratic Convention, I'm sure as hell not sitting through the Republican one. The only time I'd be interested in seeing most of these people speak is at their arraignment.

Joe Lieberman. Village idiot.

Or perhaps they are simply reminding Democrats that Sarah Palin has a long ways to go before becoming anywhere near the worst VP pick in modern history. At least she excites McCain's base. Lieberman excited Nader's. And, yes, I believe had Gore not selected Lieberman and all he represented (including a departure from Clinton), he would've won by a big enough margin that the GOPpers couldn't steal it.

that the St. Paul police restocks the pepper spray in case Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi show up".

I keed, I keed!

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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites

bathroom stalls that can accomodate a "wide stance" !

; >

to know if it should prepare to lose another of its major metropolitan areas by the end of GWB's spin as preznit."

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Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites

http://stevelyon.com/2006/09/deep-fried-...

for that and the "make an effort, MN" video in another post.

anyway, watching the seespam feed, i'm convinced of a couple of things.

- the female rep from MN (blanking on her name now) could be a problem later on down the line, assuming she doesn't have hockey player loving daughters (did i just say that?)

- none of the people in the crowd are smiling naturally.

-the gee o pee went out of its way this year to put people of Color! in the mix, and the camera is lurving them, obviously to prove the point that they aren't racist

- cindee mcmansion is painful to watch, esp with that poor adopted kid of theirs being dragged all over the stage. could a child of a pol look any more out of touch with how she is being used? i guess we have to ask palin's kid.

-again, no real energy at all. fake fake fake to the point that not even the die hards can pretend they think they have a chance

...i think the fix is in. and it is: grandpa is going to lose. in the know/those with the 1200$/hr bois know/have been told, "this is the year we hand off the mess to the dem."

i'm actually sorry i'm not there, i think it would be tres fun to listen to the various conversations at the 2 wetsuits good parties, where obviously all the actual Power Republicans are at tonight.

looks like pepsi wins this year. notice the utter lack of a line at the pop stand.

from stoller. go down to the slightly lower right and hit the <-- --> arrows to review the whole bunch, or just click on the images themselves.

I knew that line was going to come back to bite him. Fred Thompson just delivered and got the loudest applause of the night. Fred is quite an impressive speaker. I wonder where this Fred was when he was running for president?

BTW, Republicans don't know when and where to clap, it seems. The whole pacing of applause has been rather awkward in comparison to the other convention. lol

- Is it just me, or does the lighting at this convention seem to be horrible? I'm a fan of the darkened audience and lighting the stage, and at this convention, everything is lit equally, and it's harsh.

- The audience is much more defensive and much less enthusiastic, which, given the political climate isn't a surprise, but it's noticable.

they are just going thru the motions. Only a sense of duty keeps them in the hall. They are going down in flames and they know it.

I'm watching this on PBS, but does anyone else hear some dick shouting whenever there is applause? It sounds like he's too close to one of the microphones, and it's just horrible. He sounds like some middle-aged drunkard at a sporting event.

Oh, this is so very, very horrible. And, the Repugs didn't disappointed. I counted two or three times when they began to chant "USA, USA".

Guys, we're supremely fucked.

You guys have been watching too much convention. I saw barely any TV recently, and I saw grandpa Fred speaking tonight.

He was slow and boring and I can't believe everyone doesn't know he is lying about a lot of blatant things. His speech was horrible, and yes there was a canned applause track, but I wasn't impressed.

Hilarious constant cut-aways to Cindy (WTF? It was scary, unnatural looking). Also it must be so low attendance, that you can hear one dude keep yelling "yes"

That was Michele Bachmann of Minnesota's 6th which is directly north and northwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

EDIT: Not Worth It.

i was on the phone when i wrote/posted that, and she worries me. she seems to be the "high" (snicker) point of rethug females this convention, palin aside (or not.)

He was slow and boring and I can’t believe everyone doesn’t know he is lying about a lot of blatant things. His speech was horrible, and yes there was a canned applause track, but I wasn’t impressed.

And Joementum was no better.

this convention is a disaster

Sorry, but at least at the beginning of his speech, Fred's cadence and sense of timing was spot on, and the folksy defense of Palin was as good as any defense I've seen before from a Southern lawyer.

As for the lying, I think that's kind of a given. All candidates stories contain some level of mythology. I wasn't fooled. I was judging the delivery and style, not the substance.

BTW, Joe taking a detour to praise Bill Clinton in order to diminish Barack Obama was a surprise.

Or is it even worse than that, that having destroyed the Republican brand, many of the same wankers are now simply switching to the Dems, not because their beliefs have changed, but because they want a brand that hasn’t been destroyed. Yet.

OMG, this voicemail parody is tooooo funny and of course has to be a little misogynist, but at least it is at McCain's expense and not her family.

http://www.236.com/blog/w/lee_camp/mccai...

Seriously, that is some good comedy.

That there convention reflects more of the fact that there party is so damaged and stale than them conciously shooting for the "we're not Hollywood" effect. You're giving them too much credit. In effect, the Republicans seem to be prepared to go into hibernation, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, and it's palpable. This is not even to mention that Gustav literally rained on their parade adding insult to injury reminding them on their response to Katrina.

No, let's not be silly; there is an very real enthusiasm gap, even with the selection of Sarah Palin.

when is that? tonight? i've got too much to do to devote much more time to teevee viewing, but i guess i have to try to catch at least her schtick.

what will be interesting is to see if any of the subliminal stuff gets changed; as you note the markething theme last night was all about contrast with the "glitzy" dem convention in favor of "sober leadership" or whatever. will that be changed in order to accomodate mrs. trailertrash? we'll see.