The Cult of Personality

Tonight, Comrade Obama will speak at the DNC and, if crowd reaction from the first two nights is any indication, the democrats will riot and burn Charlotte to the ground.  So, before this impending tragedy takes all the funny out of the Democratic convention, I've got a point to make about why I don't think the Republicans can win this election.

First of all, did you see the audiences for each convention?  The Republican convention looked like the state of Florida's AARP convention.  No wonder they all liked Paul Ryan so much.  He was ten years younger than anyone else there, they all wanted to eat him and steal his life force.

I don't even know what to say about the Democratic convention audience.  It's like they rounded up a bunch of people in Penn Station at 3AM on a Wednesday, but honestly that doesn't even begin to cover it.  I've seen (and heard) babies in the audience at the DNC.  Honestly, babies.  One was crying while some lady was talking about how Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, thereby allowing insurance companies to deny people with pre-existing conditions, including sick babies.  Seriously, that happened, right there on my TV.

Who brings a baby to a political convention?  And people wonder why I refuse to register as a Democrat.  Diversity aside, I give the advantage on audience to the Republicans in terms of which crowd I'd rather be standing in.  Old boring people are exactly who should be at a political convention.  If you're under 30, you should be outside chanting things and throwing stuff and getting arrested. And if you're under 18 months, you should be nowhere near anything like a convention, and you shouldn't be on my TV.

Having said that, in a voting contest between "boring old white people" and "everyone else", I'd still put my money everyone else.  I think.  Old white people do like to vote.  No, I'm sticking with everyone else.

Then there's the actual talking.  I'll give the Republicans this, their message was certainly more simple.  Barack Obama is destroying America, and we're going to save it with tax cuts, because tax cuts are magic.  That's three days of Republican bloviating summed up in 19 words. 

Instead of spending three days calling the Republicans stupid (which is probably the way I would have gone), Democrats have decided to fight fire with fire by spending three days talking about how Barack Obama is actually the most awesome person in the history of awesomeness.  During Bill Clinton's speech last night, I lost count of the number of jobs he said the President saved or created somewhere around eleventy billion. 

Now, on the surface, the Democrats may seem to be at a disadvantage, what with getting bogged down with all their "facts" and "numbers" and "things that actually happened".  But I think, in the long run, the whole "telling the truth" and "not just making shit up" strategy is going to pay off.

Most important, I think, is the tone.  If the Republicans are the cult of tax cuts (and they absolutely are), then the Democrats are the cult of personality.  They believe in Barack Obama.  The speakers all talked about it, the talking points all echoed it, the pundits all noticed it; they believe.  In contrast, you'd barely know if any of the Republican speakers other than his wife had ever met Mitt Romney.

The RNC was fueled by hate.  Hate for the President, hate for certain types of people they don't like, hate for government.  The DNC has been fueled by belief.  Believe in Barack Obama, belief in what he can do, believe in what good government can do.  I'm not making a value judgment on who's right here, just stating the facts.  And I'm not blaming the Republicans for going negative, they can do what they want.

What I'm saying is, I don't think they can win with negativity against all the positivity and optimism we've seen in Charlotte.  I don't think you can be as successful getting your base out to vote for hate as you can be getting your base out to vote for hope.  I just don't think it can be done.  I guess we'll see.