Thoughts from the trail
By PAUL GIANNAMORESo, I've watched parts of the conventions. I've been to an Obama event.
And now come the brief observations:
Democrats wear sillier hats during their conventions.
Texans should not, no matter what, ever raise their cowboy hats in unison. Looks too much like line dancing.
Sarah Palin can never be mistaken for a pit bull, no matter how well she tells that hockey mom joke.
If the Republicans are the party of national security, how come they had protesters in their convention? And if those protesters pretended to be Republicans all week before acting like idiots on national TV, does that mean they were trained as sleeper agents by al-Qaida?
If God truly was listening to the conventions and speeches from the road the past two weeks, he'd have blessed the USA some 1,477 times. At least.
Thanks to all of us from the Great State of (insert state here. I prefer "Confusion.").
Myron Cope's Terrible Towel is everywhere.
I want to ride Sen. Barack Obama's bus. If he happens to be along for an interview, all the better. I really just want to ride that bus. Sleek, high tech. Wow.
Candidates really are special people. They turn on the smile, the handshake. They can make each individual voter feel as if they're the most important thing to happen to the candidate during that day, just before moving down the rope line to shake the next voter's hand.
They deliver the same speech over and over all day in places like New Philadelphia and Smithfield, and it sounds fresh every time.
Can I ride your bus, Sen. Obama? Please?
Our choices in this election are clear in some ways and unclear in others. Are we really being asked if a one-term mayor from a place about the size of Wintersville with a half term as governor seeking a vice presidential spot should consider that experience to be equal to that of a community organizer in the South Side of Chicago/state representative/half-term senator who is running for president? And what's that got to do with the price of gasoline down at the corner gas station? C'mon, campaign managers. We're not that stupid out here in the hinterlands. Issues, please.
Fred Thompson just plain and simple sounds like a president. Why couldn't he have campaigned a little more?
America still needs Tim Russert.
Could Harry S. Truman have survived the withering onslaught of 24-hour-a-day punditry? Or would he have nuked some cable network's headquarters eventually?
Eileen Krupinski is a darned gracious interview when you've got her on the phone at 6:45 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time after four days of a busy convention in Denver.
There are no campaign logos on Obama's bus. Maybe that's what makes it infinitely cooler than any other bus.
If the campaign actually is left up to Sens. McCain and Obama, I get the sense it would stay focused on issues instead of following forays into the personal and family lives of each ticket. Too bad they have handlers and the PAC money for negative ads will start flowing heavily now. It would be really interesting to see one of them win with dignity and class and grace, which I think they would do on their own.
Except for all the ugly of the partisanship around them that - despite both men claiming to be change agents - never seems to change.
Does the Obama bus have all the high-tech communications gear in it like Air Force One? How cool would that be? Forget the jet. Gimme the bus!
The war in Iraq doesn't seem to be the issue it was last spring when there were something like 42 people running for president. Hmm. So, is it the economy, stupid? Or the stupid economy?
Greatest convention lines?
"No way. No how. No McCain," by Hillary Clinton.
"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers.
And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change," by Sarah Palin.
Somewhere out there, the God who blessed the USA 1,477 times in two weeks smiled on the speech writers.
Bring on the debates. The quips and quotes and moose-fur will be flying.
Hoo-hoo we've got us an election.
And the cool thing is, despite predictions on both sides that electing the opponent will bring doom and gloom, amazingly enough the nation will somehow survive. We'll all still be Americans in four more years. Which will be at least two years into the next campaign season.
(Giannamore, a resident of Toronto, is business editor of the Herald-Star. His e-mail address is pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.)
