The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Signed, Nobody

9.9.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 5 of 6)

If the convention was a flop, that is why. Despite the fact that House Republicans gave us much economic news to talk about in the previous weeks, the convention failed to spread the news. The Democrats are correct to say there was no talk about economic issues. That probably did not go unnoticed by all voters, including this conservative. The House Republicans made it possible to create a couple of great convention mantras for the speakers and delegates who should have endlessly repeated them during the convention, and which could have been used for the remainder of the campaign.

Couldn't the convention planners have shown replays of the incident that occurred on the House floor when the Democrats ended the current session to go on vacation while some Republicans stayed and insisted on canceling their vacations to debate the "drill now" issue? Imagine seeing the actual footage of the Republicans wanting to stay in session to debate the drilling issue, and the lights being turned out by Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats. I guess no one on our side made an effort to get a C-SPAN tape of it, or any tapes of the live news reports of the incident. Many may think it was a gimmick, or came to believe that after hearing the MSM report on it. However, it was an accurate way to distinguish the Republicans and Democrats.

Simply talking about drilling offshore helped cause the per barrel price of oil, and the gas prices at the pumps, to dramatically decrease in the few weeks prior to the convention. If the drilling issue and price of oil were mentioned by some, it surely wasn't talked about often enough or in strong enough terms.

The Friday after McCain's speech, the MSM and Democrats proudly reported the new unemployment rate had jumped to 6.1 percent. Surely McCain was aware, before his speech that would be in the news the next day. He could have been emphatic during his speech that drilling now would create many 10's of thousands of well-paid jobs.

I am not an expert on the oil and gas industry, but I will assume people would need to be hired to make the parts to build new drilling rigs; people would have to be hired to actually build and then maintain the drilling rigs; people would have to be hired to make the parts to build the new refineries that would be needed; people would have to be hired to actually build and then maintain the refineries; and all types of truckers and shippers would have to be hired to transport all of the above parts and equipment from place to place. I believe those are the types of well-paying jobs that many Americans would love to have. As an aside, McCain could have mentioned building and running nuclear power plants and the jobs that would create.

Maybe McCain and his strategists are waiting for the right time to hammer home those points, as they did with the perfect timing in revealing Palin as his VP pick. Even if that is true, they missed a great opportunity to share a winning part of the conservative message with 37-40 million viewers both Wednesday and Thursday nights last week. That message would also have helped many House and Senate members keep or gain their congressional seats.

Maybe the McCain team has written-off having any coattails at all. I don't know why when one considers congressional approval was at 22% when we lost the congress in 2006, and it is now 9% with the Democrats in control. Also consider the excitement over the selection of Palin. It is a big mistake to accept what the MSM tells us about our election chances for November. Conservatives have already wasted the time and opportunity that our convention presented. McCain's team should take advantage of the drilling question and the lower oil and gas prices the issue has produced. It is a winning issue for us and our side should take complete advantage of it.
-- David Tomaselli

DEATH TAX NUANCE
Re: Peter Ferrara's Morning in America:

Mr. Ferrara writes about Sen. McCain that he will be "...maintaining the phase out of the death tax."

This is incorrect. Although the Republican Party platform calls for ending the estate tax, McCain plans to keep the estate tax on estates over $5 million. (In comparison, Sen. Obama plans to keep the estate tax on estates over $3.5 million.)

Please issue a correction.
-- Lee Farris

LADY DI ADDRESSES SUBJECTS
Re: Reader letters under "Bungled" in Reader Mail's Post-Conventional Wisdom:

Can someone tell me what this absolute need is, by certain of your regular Readers Comments correspondents to iterate and reiterate ad nauseam, their visceral dislike of John McCain? We all know the ones -- I could recite them in my sleep. They are the people who preface everything with "I've said it before and I'll say it again..." My inward plea is "Please don't."

Now we have an even more stinging rebuke -- the desire for an upside down ticket. Sarah Palin has stolen their hearts away with her Dolly Parton down-home feistiness. And that is not meant to detract from Ms. Palin. Dolly Parton is no slouch in the brains department, either. Her funniest line ever to stop her detractors was "Y'all may laugh, but it costs a fortune to look this cheap!" Keep up this steady drumbeat and our ticket will be a one way one to oblivion. It could still go to Obama if Republicans insist on this unrelenting whining. We are like ungrateful children who beg for a bike all year long and then complain because it is a Huffy and not a Schwinn. Or whatever is popular now. It was Schwinn when I was buying bikes.

Even Bill Oaf Reilly on Friday gave his critique of McCain's speech. "He seemed stiff. Couldn't he stop folding and unfolding his hands in front of him? Why didn't he just put his hands in back of him...?" Well, maybe, Bill, because at the Hanoi Hilton they put his hands and arms in back of him and above him and let him hang there for days and it disabled him for any future graceful posing. Trauma to the joints (ask Joe Namath) causes arthritis later in life, you boob. Having your arms twisted at the shoulders is hard on the acromio-clavicular joints and damned uncomfortable, to boot.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Trade, Health Care, John McCain, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Business, Satire, Islam, Law, Iran, Pakistan, NATO, Alaska, Oil