Sotto Voce: Muttering Under My Breath & the RNC

Probably the most wrong-headed story-line out of the convention, one you see in the MSM and in conservative media, is that the Tea Party has been "shut out" of the hall. Then what are Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Sean Duffy, Mia Love, Bob McDonnell, Scott Walker, and Ted Cruz - not to mention honorary Tea Partier Paul Ryan - doing with major speaking slots? Most of those folks ran explicitly insurgent campaigns with strong Tea Party themes.

On the other hand, it's incredible the small presence social conservatives had on stage. When Mike Huckabee is your major evangelical voice, you know you are dealing with a diminished wing of the GOP.

Sorry, but I remember when "social conservative leader" meant larger-than-life figures like Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell, not the cuddly pro-life statist Huck.

Still, social conservatives haven't been shut out either. The GOP remains an explicitly pro-life party. Even blue-state Republicans like Paul Ryan and Condi Rice weaved strong pro-life themes into their speeches.

Speaking of Rice, her line about her parents telling her that she could grow up to be president, even if she couldn't sit at the counter at Woolworth's, packed an emotional punch. You can tell the experience still rankles her.

Still, she missed the chance to remind everybody that those jerk segregationists were all Democrats. (and mostly remained Democrats, "southern strategy" mythology notwithstanding).

All the media people marveling at star-making turn by Susana Martinez need to get out of the house more. Her line about "damn! we're Republicans!" has popped up over and over again in her profiles in conservative media .

Paul Ryan's speech worked, not because it was full of great lines, but because it was true.

On the other hand, the media's attempts at insta-fact checking the Ryan speech (with the overt goal of declaring Ryan a liiiiiiiiar) didn't work because...what he said was true.

The idea that Ryan might have gotten the facts about the Janesville GM plant wrong is hilarious. The guy only lives in Janesville, and knows people who worked for GM. And, don't you think the Republican congressman from Janesville would know exactly what a Democrat presidential candidate said when he visited his district?

The Code Pink ladies who interrupted Paul Ryan's speech remindsme of many things, the first of which is that there is no threat of the equivalent happening at the DNC.

Also, the same media that refuses to show streakers during baseball games - the better to discourage them, my dears - will always show a few precious seconds of the Code Pinkos.

Re: the under-reported story of the Romney Secret Service agent leaving her gun in an airplane lavoratory-it's incredible how many government institutions have discredited themselves in the last decade. That really is the ultimate indictment of Big Government.

A great quote from Mitch McConnell on what it's like to be the leader of the Senate Republicans: "It’s like being the groundskeeper in a cemetery: Everyone is under you, but no one is listening to you."

Is it just me, or are some of the more vocal anti-Romneyites in the media - I'm thinking Toure, Clay Aiken, and that Yahoo News guy, especially - coming across as hysterical closet cases?

Whatever happened to that hurricane?

"Just Win, Baby."