Posted on 09/01/2012 8:02:38 PM PDT by lasereye
So writes reader Jim, who sends along several photos from the Romney-Ryan rally in Jacksonville which is starting as of this writing. (added: Prof. Reynolds also is posting reader photos)
He further writes: “Line for RomneyRyan Jax Landing event – two lines both way longer than this appears”:
Jacksonville Landing was absolutely electric with I would estimate two to three thousand people screamIng for Romney and Ryan. It was a total blast to be there. It was literally one of the most fun things I have ever done.The warm up speakers included Jennifer Carroll, the African-American Republican Lieutenant Governor of Florida.
Speaking of that, I am surprised at how many African-Americans were there – there were a lot.
Tons of military veterans too.
Romney and Ryan both look fantastic up close. Ryan is obviously in superb physical condition and Mitt looks great too. Their speeches were great and covered some of the same ground as their convention speeches, but they also totally hammered Obama for the unemployment rate, the drop in average family income of $4000, which I don’t recall hearing before, the national debt, huge cuts to defense spending looming, etc. Mitt also reiterated his 5-point plan. The crowd loved it.
Ann Romney spoke for several minutes too, and she was great.
But the best part was after the speeches were over and Mitt and Paul Ryan came down from the stage to shake hands with the people. Mitt really tried to connect with everyone he could. I pressed forward and eventually got to shake his hand. He had a firm handshake and looked me right in the eye for a split second. I actually forget what I said to him because it was such an insane moment.
I was actually a little afraid because so many people were pushing behind me to get a chance to shake Mitt’s hand. It was totally insane. Like a mosh pit at a rock concert, like maybe an AC/DC or Led Zeppelin concert!
The level of enthusiasm for this ticket was shockingly high in Jacksonville.
And outside I counted 9, yes 9, lame protestors wearing purple SEIU shirts and screeching unintelligibly. It was perfect.
The 2012 election is going to be 2010 on steroids.
This is the most important election America has ever had.
Obama has been so obysmal that yes, even Mitt Romney with his many faults and wafflings represents a grand relief.
The Democrats have just realized the sharks are circling, and there is already blood in the water....
And they thought it was just going to be another day on the beach.
A ham sandwich was destined to beat Barack Obama, and here it is.
Interesting observation: rally held on ‘Rush Street’. Hmmm? Rush Limbaugh lives in Florida. Hmmm?
This 2012 USA Presidential elections could very well be historic.
I saw part of this on FOX until they went to a talking head.
You wouldn’t have recognized Romney!
He was on fire and had the crowd in a frenzy.
If he had given a speech like this at the convention the place would have exploded.
If he can keep this up AND if he can get some air time to show it he will win over a lot of fence sitters.
He lives further south in FL.
we can just hope that the DNC events are only half empty!
I know that. Just pointing out my observation.
If Mitt can avoid doing something abysmally stupid, he will mop the floor with Obama. Then a furious lame duck Obama will do all the damage he can.
Reader: “At huge Jacksonville Landing Romney-Ryan event – place is insanely packed”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/2925564/posts
It sure looks like a rock concert scene.
This week coming he can start. Stand back Mitt and let the FREAK SHOW in Charlotte NC begin!
Well, Mitt will be just about anybody’s huckleberry if they give him a sufficient reason to do it. And it looks like the “severely conservative” heads have prevailed with Mitt. For the present time at least.
It is time for all red blooded Americans to make the most of Mitt’s Play-Doh waffle. An ideological fortress like Ronald Reagan, Mitt will never be. But there is an opportunity that Barack Obama would not have permitted unless literally broken and swept out along with Slow Joe.
If Mitt can avoid doing something abysmally stupid, he will mop the floor with Obama. Then a furious lame duck Obama will do all the damage he can.
______________________________________________________________
The debates are going to be the clincher.
I’ll put money that it is one of the debates where Obama loses it completely in front of a national audience.
http://www.TheHopeAndTheChange.com/trailer.aspx
Any objective look at the debates will show that Barack is married to a miasma of illusions and impracticalities, and that Mitt is at least half reasonable. And on the veep level, Slow Joe will be pancaked. As a freeper I cannot remember put it, it would be like trying to debate nuclear physics with a house cat.
Ryan will CREAM Slo-Joe. CREAM him!
Dems don't just vote the dead - they vote the people who stay home - the ones too lazy to get up and vote. And they hire trolls, rent-a-mobs, and they buy the press with 'great questions and leads...
We're dealing with people who are scum of the earth - they know how to fight dirty. And they will - this is NOT going to be easy.
Mitt Romney is the first candidate since WWII to have experience as a successful executive in charge of a large private sector company. IKE, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bushes and of course the radical socialist from Chicago had that level of experience and record. If elected it will be interesting to see if Romney can deliver prosperity to the country similar to what he created for Bain by the bushel-fulls.
If it isn’t close they cannot cheat.
The only thing I can think of that might really torpedo Mitt, is if he pushes the Mormon thing too hard in his final campaign weeks. The LDS is of course chomping at the bit for what they view as their finally deserved place in the sun. But Mitt can’t yield to their wish to tell everybody that they ought to be Mormon. Not if he doesn’t want to get half his erstwhile supporters to sit the election out.
It does seem hard to argue that Mitt is NOT an economy go-to guy. Some less than intuitive economic decisions in Massachusetts notwithstanding (Romneycare didn’t make health care any more affordable in Massachusetts).
Will he be able to work that kind of economic magic without getting the government involved? Except for getting it out of the way? We shall see.
With 85% democrat legislature to deal with in Taxachusetts, It is a wonder Romney got to balance the budget, improve credit rating of state issued bonds, and actually got 19 taxcuts passed. He also issued 800 vetoes in 4 years...probably a record.
If he gets a majority GOP congress, and he does not deliver significant improvements in budget deficits, I am going to be disappointed big time. If senate remains democrat, his job will be obviously much more difficult.
We as a nation will never start paying off national debt hanging like sword of Damocles on the young, until we first arrive at balanced budgets and then on to surplus budgets.
If Mitt is wise he will pave the road for many more private Bain’s.
If he is less wise (however well intentioned) he will try to put the government in Bain’s shoes. Which will be a recipe for disaster as it will be pulled every which way by conflicting constituent interests rather than a pure desire to prosper capitalistically.
Amazingly, the NY Times has this headline linked from Drudge:
In a Post-Convention Bump, Romney Draws Huge Crowds in Cincinnati
I can’t see a guy like Ryan completely humiliating ‘ol plugz, but he could if he wanted to. What do you think is going through plugz’s mind when he thinks about that debate? He probably focuses on the morons who will vote for him no matter what, and compartmentalizes all others in a very dark place.
Hi Tech? Just old fashion cynical ignorance.
You a Mormon?
OK, if you are, how’d you feel about it if some Baptist candidate for president told you that you ought to be a Baptist?
Oh that’s different?
T H E Y L I E ...
SO GLAD TO SEE ROMNEY/RYAN HAVE A GREAT CROWD IN OHIO AS WELL AS FL.
Take it to the bank...Mitt will reign in regulatory burdens on small businesses, give them tax certainty, and with help from a GOP congress repeal Obamacare. This guy has spent decades investing in small outfits and helped them grow. He knows better than any politician in Washington what makes small businesses tick.
If you listened to speeches from his former subordinates, you will have noticed Mitt is tight with spending money. You are very unlikely to see massive expansion of any entitlements including healthcare. Romneycare was a state issue, and obviously popular in MA since it has not been repealed after Mitt’s departure what 8 years ago? I have no problem with any state experimenting with whatever. That is spelled out in constitution as states rights. States can not go overboard in spending levels anyways because they can not print money unlike the federals. States can go bankrupt. Feds can keep on printing money but that too has limits as winessed in Greece & Spain.
AMERICA is taking its Country back!!!!
Romney is in it to win it!!!
Exactly. If Romney wins I won't be elated but I will be relieved. And if he can be a successful 2 term President (a big if) it would set up Ryan as the next in line.
Mitt has promised to sign repeal to Obamacare and that is one of the very few areas he has not been seen to waffle upon. That he would fail to do this, is not a fear to me.
The bigger question is whether Mitt is wise enough not to try to turn Uncle Sam itself into a big Bain. Answers that work screamingly well in the private domain bomb out when governments do them, because there is no economic necessity that would force them to stop. How will Chrysler and GM ever get off the government books? Nobody wants to release that tiger’s tail.
Romney to date has been instinctually shy about his Mormon faith in public, so I wouldn’t worry about him “pushing” that. The only reason he had to talk about it at the convention was because everyone said he had to “humanize” himself and show who he was and his personality. Of course, the left could go on a public anti-Mormon crusade and force him to respond.
I guess it would make sense that most of the personal time Mitt spent off the corporate clock was with other Mormons. An analogous thing is probably true for any person who is serious about his or her religion. When asked about where he or she spends the most time socializing, it will be with his or her faith circle.
That’s perfectly acceptable to most Americans, even those who disagree (as I certainly do) with what the LDS theologically teaches. You can be a perfectly nice, civilized person without needing to get theological matters right. If it goes no further it won’t hurt Mitt. If the LDS succeeds in hounding Mitt into making his candidate or presidential podium into a proselytizing pulpit, then social trouble will ensue.
Me too...Mitt is certainly no Cain or Newt or even Perry who would certainly have cut the spending aggressively. I am hoping his business mind will overrule his compassionate heart.
bttt
But but but... I thought RomneyCare was McLame Redux... that he was running to lose... that he generated no enthusiasm... rabble rabble rabble...
Zero said he had planned to be in jacksonville first today but he now plans to get to ....wherever Mitt is going tomorrow
FOX played a little bit of this rally and I was actually pretty impressed with Romney’s message and delivery. He threw out that $4,000 income stat and a few other hard facts, rather than the vague platitudes he usually does. And he had more energy than in the RNC speech that literally put me to sleep. But then FOX cut away after 5 minutes back to their boring Saturday hosts talking about the same boring non-news. And it wasn’t on any of the other channels or C-SPAN. I wanted to see Ryan speak.
I guess the downsides are that the words were carefully chosen in that political way to sound like big, bold promises but with little unassuming qualifiers in there that can get Romney out of them. And it’s still too much of that bland “Obama’s done a bad job, I’ll do a better job” message, without explaining much if anything about why conservative ideology makes for a better economy than liberal ideology does, which is the way Reagan would explain economics.
So if Romney runs the government like the LDS church, he'll be running a left-wing government. Which we can expect from him unless Tea Partiers flex their muscle. But they did that on Bush's tax hikes in 1992ish, Bush just hiked taxes further until he could get enough Democrats to sign on with the moderate Repubs.
I'm uncomfortable with Romney's message of "fire Obama and hire me because I'll do it better." I want to hear the message of, I'll return power back to the people so you can do it better than Obama yourself. And even Ryan at the convention joined in on the, "If you're not doing well, it's the government's fault." Which is true under Obama to an extent, but I'm not hearing the followup which should be "we'll get the government out of your way." I'm just hearing "our government will do better than Obama's government." The Romney message is not inconsistent with someone who thinks he can be a better central planner than the other guy.
If the Left does start taking swipes at Romney's Mormon faith, they will have walked into a trap. It will light on fire the religious faiths who do not like religious persecution and already see a trend coming from the Obama Regime to bully Christians. It would convince religious faiths that the Obama Regime is not their friend and it is time to pull the plug on them.
Oh hell yes.
It would quickly backfire, forking off into two paths:
One where the topic becomes 'And what is Obama's religion? Oh, that's right: He attended Rev. Wright's 'We Hate Honkies, and God Damn America' church for twenty years, but ever since he moved to the White House we've never seen him at any other kind of church.
The other path would be "Don't you all remember? Obama's a dad-gum MUSLIM."
No good can come of this for Obama. It would mean that race and color are off-limits, but creed is fair game all of a sudden.
Oh, I hope they do it.
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