Progress on the Home Front

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The Republican Convention is reaching a climax tonight. I am heartened by the number of people saying someone needs to pull the plug on national conventions. One pundit cautioned this will not happen soon, because the mega-contributors in both parties give with the expectation that they will be wined-and-dined with this money later when they get to town. Fine, save them a seat at Burger King and have the candidates parade by to spear a french fry.

Hurricane Isaac stole much of the thunder this week from the convention, Not too much buzz on the street about Ann Romney or anyone else’s moment on the podium in Tampa. Most of the places I visited had football or baseball games on screens in the evening. Public curiosity in Issac or the Republicans was pretty low. Not a good sign. Hurricanes and elections have consequences. August sports events do not.

What I did see was an awful lot of glorified cheerleading and robo-talk from members of both parties. Facts get short-shrift. Serious proposals none. We have major problems now. The war in Afghanistan has become a nightmare for this country and this administration, but neither party seems to want to address it. Next week the Democrats get their chance, but I can’t see why anyone would want to switch channels to watch. The education value will be nil again. So will the entertainment value.

Another heartening sign though is the growing chorus of complaints about how long and annoying this election has become, — from both sides. Unfortunately we are still not hearing a serious proposal about reforming the process. Rather than fumbling through whether out-of-wedlock births are the same as rape, or whether Romney plans to rape Social Security, why doesn’t some bright ambitious Paul Ryan-type come up with a bill to curb the wretched excess in our national election processes. He’d get bi-partisan support from voters . He’d probably even get nominated in 2016.

For the moment however, we will need to be content with the increased public anger over campaign gluttony and politics-as-usual in these United States. It’s not good when a hurricane or a tight end has to come to anyone’s rescue.

Tom Godfrey

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