Polar Politics: Republican National Convention achieves its goals

Thursday, August, 30, 2012; 9:54 PM | 19 | | Print

The political spotlight was on the Republican Party this week as they held their national convention in Tampa, Florida. For a few days, the GOP had undivided attention from the national media. Except for when MSNBC refused to cover any minority speaker at the convention in an obvious effort to continue to paint the party as the “old white man” party, It used that national media attention to showcase the 2012 Republican Presidential ticket.

Republicans wanted to achieve a vast array of goals during this convention. The first, unveil the party platform and present it in a way that appeals to all Americans. Second, the party wanted to, and needed to, introduce Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to the American people; introduce them not just as candidates, but as people as well.

Finally, the party wanted Romney to appeal to the core of the conservative right in this country, and energize that base to start pounding the pavement and turn out every possible vote in November. The GOP conveyed the party believes this is the winning ticket, and that the fight will easily carry on full force until the last polls close.

So did they accomplish these goals? Yes.

First off, look at the type of press coming out of the convention. Aside from the usual attacks from the left that Ann Romney is spoiled and Paul Ryan is an extremist (because apparently the millions of Americans who balance their checkbooks every month are extremists too) there wasn’t a lot of damaging or negative press that came out of Tampa this week.

The only exception to the positive press may be those who are claiming the party establishment treated Ron Paul and his supporters unfairly when there were attempts to nominate Ron Paul from the floor. First off, Ron Paul was never going to walk out of that convention as the nominee, and anyone who doesn’t agree with me on that apparently counts delegates the same way President Obama counts dollars.

Additionally, the idea the party establishment treated Ron Paul “unfairly” is a claim coming from the left, not the right. The left wants the American people to believe the inner workings of the Republican Party are corrupt.

Politics, however, is a game, and that game is played on both sides of the aisle.

There were countless great speeches during the week from a wide array of Republican politicians and figureheads. The most fascinating, in my opinion, were the speeches from the likes of Mia Love, Susana Martinez and Nikki Haley.

Love is the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and is a candidate for Congress this year as well. She’s also African-American, although Al Sharpton would probably prefer you don’t know that.

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A version of this article appeared in the Aug 31 issue of the Collegiate Times.

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Civil Reporting | # August 31, 2012 @ 2:05 PM — Flag Comment

The article on the RNC was quickly able to focus on the many details and intentions for the convention, and was very insightful in this manner. However, even for an opinion piece, the style of reporting strayed towards unethical crudeness.
Mr. Hurt, it's wrong to cite as your FIRST KEY POINT of the RNC's success that there wasn't a negative democratic press response to the RNC but then go on to back-talk "anyone who doesn't agree with me on that apparently counts delegates the same way President Obama counts dollars." To assess others on negative commentary then freely give it yourself is known as a double standard. You then went on to give lip to Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews, and "every liberal talking head" when you could have provided detail on what exactly the speakers mentioned. Even if such opinions exist, it gains you nothing to give credit to them when there were positive aspects of the convention to be recognized.

Collegiate Times

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