About That Enthusiasm Gap . . .

I mentioned yesterday that continued comparisons between the two campaigns could be interesting.  I’m just laying out what I found, with no cherry-picking.  Here’s a line of folks (via Twitter) waiting outside an OFA office August 11th, for tickets to Obama’s appearance at Oskaloosa today, Tuesday August 14th:

Next are the photos of the actual Obama in Oskaloosa event that I found on Twitter today.

First, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” is now stuck in my head.

Second is the line of folks waiting outside the Nelson Pioneer Farm and Museum.  “Really, really, really long line for tickets to attend Pres. Obama’s event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Enthusiasm gap? HA!”

The above photo of the queue is getting some distribution on the Twitterz.  I’m not sure what time it was taken, but the tweet above was sent at 11:11am.  The event was to begin at 9am according to this report.

Here are the rest that I found, in chronological order.  10:19am:

11:42am:

12:35pm:

12:50pm:

1:50pm:

2:19pm:  Oh dear.  I couldn’t embed this picture for some reason.  You’ll have to click over.

And finally, a Fox News photo from a 2:37pm tweet:

Whew, this linking and saving and attaching is pretty tedious.  Nevermind, I shall perservere.

On to the Paul Ryan event in Lakewood, Colorado, also held today (Tuesday August 14th).  This event was set to begin at 10am.

9:14am, the queue waiting to get inside:

9:44am, another view of the queue:

11:56am:

At 12:03pm @Chris_Moody tweets:  “Paul Ryan about to address totally packed gym in Lakewood, Colorado.”  Here’s his photo:

12:05pm:

At 12:10pm, @JoyLinFN tweets:  “Fire marshal says gymnasium at Lakewood High School has reached max capacity for Paul Ryan speech.  Crowd waits.”  Here is her photo:

At 12:13pm, @tripgabriel tweets:  “Packed to the rafters awaiting Paul Ryan at Lakewood HS in Colorado.”  His pic:

12:26pm:

12:57pm from @ShepherdCNN:

And finally, at 12:58pm, @KContiforCO tweets:  “Paul Ryan.  Addresses a Rockin’ crowd at Lakewood High School.”  Her photo:

These comparisons are proving interesting to me.  What do you think?

Here’s a strange thing.  At this very moment, the headlining topic at Memeorandum is  “GOP pros fret over Paul Ryan.”  Huh.  Perhaps there is a disconnect between the pros and the actual voters?

Related:  Rasmussen: Ohio likely voters favorable toward Ryan, 51/39

cross-posted at NoOneOfAnyImport

 

The Mandatory Mitt-Infused Demoralization Post

It was obvious to the American people early on that Barack Obama was a disaster, an America hating sociopath, hell bent on destroying the country and reformulating the basic pillars of our society into a socialist nation, which requires the rejection of our Constitution.

Obama and the Democrats’ policies were the catalysts for the Tea Party uprising against the malfeasances and usurpations by our increasingly tyrannical government.

Yes. Usurpations. Just like the usurpations of King George III, as cataloged by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Only worse.

Uprisings are unconventional things for normal Americans. And uprisings have never been taken lightly by those that do the rising up. That normal Americans rose up in high dudgeon and in such enormous numbers across the country speaks volumes. I’m not talking about Obama’s professionally led (and sometimes paid) grievance mongers clamoring for free swag, like the Occupiers. I’m talking about normal Americans. Conservative Americans. Or more accurately, majority Americans.

We spend our lives working, providing for our families, playing by the rules and not making much noise.

Americans don’t have much time for Tea Partying.

But we continue to be totally pissed off at the body politic that is taking us down the road to hell.

The Conservative uprising in 2009 resulted in Governors like Bob McDonnell and Attorneys General like Ken Cuccinelli, who will be going face to face with president Obama at the Supreme Court next week fighting Obamacare, incidentally.

In 2010, this uprising flipped the Congress, many statehouses, governorships and rippled through every level of government, from stem to stern.

In 2011 it flipped the Virgina Senate, as well.

So you see, just like the orignal Tea Party patriots, we modern day Tea Party patriots didn’t continue to toss tea into Boston Harbor, we became Minute Men. Most of us have moved on from symbolic demonstrations to local Republican Party participants, trying to persuade our local Republican Committees that the ideas of the Founders are the most meritorious and to demand accountability of our elected representatives.

But quite frankly, it never even occurred to me, or most Americans for that matter, that Republicans could so totally screw up this nomination process by creating an environment of exclusion and party protectionism so as to alienate the base of the conservative movement. I was hoping for better outcomes and more acceptance, but I was merely being naive.

The Republican party is a machine. A machine not unlike the Whig Party machine. That they would ignore the will of the people, exclude people from the process like they did in Virginia and engineer the nomination of a guy like BigGuvMitt ain’t working for me and that the party embraces this scorched earth candidate is disturbing to the point of alienation.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of Comrade Obama. But as for the future of the Republican Party…I don’t see where we have much to build upon.

 

Marco Rubio delivers the GOP weekly address; reminds us what the conservative movement stands for

We are now in the midst of a contentious presidential primary season. This should be an opportunity for Republicans and conservatives to flood the airwaves (and the Internet) promoting the conservative vision of America that a Republican president and congress would deliver. Instead of seizing the moment, Republicans have, by and large, allowed the main stream media and their super PACs to control the narrative squabbling (often dishonestly) over meaningless issues like tax returns, private equity, professional consulting, private investments, and personal attacks.

In debate after debate we have witnessed a professional wrestling type skirmishes which are seldom based on policy. What has been described as debate fatigue is most likely due to the fact that the Republicans have not used this opportunity to remind Americans what they are for. They have spent most of the time either attacking each other or answering biased questions designed to paint Republicans in a bad light.

What the Republican candidates need to do is to communicate their vision for the future, define what they stand for and what that will mean for them and their fellow Americans. They need to follow the lead of their rising star Marco Rubio. Watch and listen as Senator Rubio delivers this week’s GOP Address.

 

Where to find tonight’s Republican debate

Correction:  The debate itself starts at 8.  7pm is the pregame show.

Update:  Comcast 103

FYI:  It will be on Bloomberg Television at 7pm Eastern.  I didn’t even know I had BTV, but it’s on channel 353 if you have DirectTV.

But it will also be streamed.  The Washington Post, the host of the debate (what could go wrong?), has the details about where this debate can be seen.

So please join us at the table tomorrow night. The debate will stream on PostPolitics.com and on washingtonpost.com/debate, alongside live coverage from the Fix’s Chris Cillizza. It will also air on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg.com and WBIN-TV in New Hampshire.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/republican-debate-expect-the-unexpected/2011/10/10/gIQAxjVGaL_blog.html

I hope this helps.