The Conventional Wisdom on Conventions

The media is reporting that President Obama and his party plan to highlight the auto bailout as the centerpiece of their convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, this September. Saving the ailing auto industry, they believe, will show voters that Democrats may not create jobs but they can save them. Unfortunately, Obama's auto bailout is turning into yet another scandal of interest for congressional investigators.

Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, demanded Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner turn over all documents concerning the administration's bilking of pension plans for 20,000 non-union GM/Delphi workers that suffered losses averaging between 30 and 70 percent when the feds reorganized the bankrupt auto giant. The pensions for the organized United Auto Workers (one of Obama's major campaign contributors), were miraculously made whole. The sweetheart deal of a bailout also soaked taxpayers to the tune of $25.1 billion.

Meanwhile, Republicans are abuzz that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will deliver the keynote address at their convention in Tampa next month. The red, white and blue stage will no doubt be packed with Republican luminaries, delivering speeches singing the virtues of their party and its candidate for president.

If the empty-suits running the GOP had any smarts, they'd realize that this election is not about Romney, Christie or the man on the moon. IT'S ABOUT OBAMA!

The president's re-election campaign centers on two themes: Romney is unfit to serve as chief executive because, as head of a private equity firm, he exported jobs overseas and - in at least one case - caused cancer.

Instead of Christie, the first speaker to stand at the convention podium should be Charles Stone. He's the GM/Delphi worker forced into bankruptcy when Obama confiscated his pension, showering the proceeds on his hope-and-change UAW buddies.

"I worked for 34 years at GM/Delphi Corp. When Delphi went bankrupt, we lost everything," Stone told conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. "We lost our pension and health insurance. I did not belong to the union, so GM/Delphi could have cared less." And you can add Obama to that list.

The next speaker should be the smart solar engineer Lindsey Eastburn. She's a former Solyndra green-energy employee that lost her job when the solar-panel maker went belly-up. "After we got the [government] loan guarantee, they [Solyndra executives] were just spending money left and right," she told the Washington Post, "Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy." Eastburn speaks to the false sense of security brought on when sleazy politicians start "spreading the wealth around."

And this takes us to our last speaker ... Joe The Plumber. He's the Ohio man who had the gumption to ask the campaigning Chicago community organizer of his plans for the nation's taxpayers. Oddly enough, Obama told him. Joe's convention speech can be short and sweet: "I warned you ... thank you, and God bless America."

The nation's tired eyes will brighten next September like never before. As the country sinks deeper into economic depression, Americans will focus on next month's political conventions as though they are back-to-back Super Bowls. But Obama has the advantage of commanding the largest and nastiest super PAC in American politics ... the mainstream media.

The thimble-headed organizers of Tampa's Republican conclave believe they should use the national spotlight to rehabilitate Bain Capital's image and dispel the Obama campaign's charge that a Romney presidency will have the carcinogenic impact of a ten pack-a-day smoking habit.

That's because they fail to understand that their convention should serve one purpose: to reinforce the idea that the election of 2012 is a referendum on the performance of one Barack Hussein Obama.

Their message should be simple yet powerful: "With an incumbent president as horrible as Obama, does it really matter who we Republicans pick to replace him?"

may not create jobs but they can save them...

And they will KEEP-ON saving them until either:

1. There are none... or,

2. We all work for the centralized government, having all our respective industries bailed out.

Good thoughts.

One reason the Republican Party cannot build a lasting majority is its poor marketing and PR skills. Since Lee Atwater died the party has failed to develop a message that resonates with both the base and the general public except for that brief period in the mid 1990’s when Newt was pushing the Contract for America.

In contrast the left brings to the game a concerted and coordinated message using the resources of Hollywood and the mainstream media. The message every day is coordinated and consistent. In contrast, if the Republicans ever seem to be getting track with a single storyline, one of their own (McCain, Graham, Collins, Snowe, Lugar) will be trotted out by the media to take a more “conciliatory” position and kill the momentum. When the Dems have momentum, they all stay on message.

They haven’t saved GM, they only put off the inevitable.

They secured for themselves the UAW vote. That’s about it.

The networks may only be broadcasting one hour a night live starting at 10:00 or 11:00 EST. If that is the case who is going to be watching anyway?

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