Democratic Convention Day 1 First Impressions

The Democratic convention began with far more energy than the Republicans, who couldn’t think of anything to do beyond making the theme for  their convention a comment from Obama taken out of context and recycling a bunch of Romney campaign lies. The Republicans received either a trivial or no bounce from their convention depending upon the pollster. Considering the degree of polarization in this country, with few persuadable voters left, I’m not sure if bounces of the nature we have seen in the past are possible, but if they are the Democrats are in a far better position. The Democrats put on a far more exciting show in the10:00 hour when the television audience is largest, going from Julian Castro to Michelle Obama. I would love to see Michelle Obama debate Ann Romney. Ann also did an excellent job in terms of delivery, but Michelle wins by a blowout when you look at content. The Democrats also had stronger speakers earlier in the evening, including Deval Patrick and Ted Strickland.

Democrats had a lot to object to in the Republican convention which resorted to lying about the Democratic views and record as opposed to giving any real reason to vote Republican. Of course Republicans were also complaining about the Democratic convention. I imagine that the headline on Fox might be: Democrats Cheer Castro. Paul Ryan argued that the Republicans had a debt clock at their convention but the Democrats did not. That is how it should be. The party responsible for running up the deficit should watch that clock.

Some conservatives  were also angry about what some claimed to be taking God out of their platform. Ed Kilgore had one response and Doug Mataconis had these comments on this “outrage.”

Apparently, this is today’s outrage of the day among some segments of the right:

Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform.

This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform:

“We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Now the words “God-given” have been removed. The paragraph has been restructured to say this:

“We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.”

Yes, and? So one bland and meaningless sentence has been replaced with another bland, meaningless, and much longer sentence, and the only difference is that one word is missing? This is supposed to outrage me?

I suppose the other question I would have is what is an reference to a god of any kind doing in the platform of a political party of a nation whose Constitution expressly provides that there shall be no religious test for office? But, then, that’s just me.