GorT and Mrs. GorT watched a bit of the DNC coverage.  We tuned into Fox News who carried the three speeches (O’Malley, Julian Castro, and Michelle Obama) and movie in totality.  Clearly O’Malley and Castro are trying to punch their tickets for higher positions in the democrat party.  Just as clearly, apparently, the direction given to the speakers at the convention (and GorT was not alone on this – go check Twitter) was that they should SHOUT everything to make a point or fire people up.  It is in stark contrast to the dynamic nature of the speakers that the GOP had last week since these speakers have the normal speaking mode and SHOUTING SPEAKER MODE with no nuances.

A few phrases in Mrs. Obama’s speech last night caught both of us and we turned and said, “Really?”

1. “That is why he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to help women get equal pay for equal work.” – except data from the White House’s 2011 annual report shows that female staffers earn a median salary 18% less than their male counterparts. It was also noted that during Obama’s 2008 campaign, then-Senator Obama’s office paid their female staffers less as well. In the same campaign, Sen. McCain was paying his female staffers more than their male counterparts ($55K vs. $53K).

2. “And he believes that when you work hard and done well and walk through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. No, you reach back and you give other folks the same chances that help you succeed.” – but reaching back to give the “same chances” doesn’t mean that the government should forcibly take wealth from successful people and pass it. It should make sure that the chances and opportunities are there.

3. “I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he is going to do, even when it is hard, especially when it’s hard.” – should we really go there? His first statement in office about what he was going to do was that he was going to close Gitmo. How did that go? Seems to still be open. He said he would cut the deficit in half in his first four years…instead it grew by the largest amount under the first term of a President ever. He has said repeatedly that we were in a recovery but at this rate, the job growth is so slow that it will be the 2020s or 2030s before we recoup all the job losses and factor in the growth of people in the workforce. And if he wants to tackle hard, how about doing something about the entitlement programs – the proverbial third-rail in politics. He has offered NO solutions even though many economist note that it is the core of the economic issues facing our country.

4.  “They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success or care that others had much more than they did…in fact, they admired it.”  – so that’s why he’s launching ads and attacks against Romney for being a millionaire and making wise investments?  Right.


5.  “I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as “us” and “them” – he doesn’t care whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or none of the above…he knows that we all love our country…and he’s always ready to listen to good ideas…he’s always looking for the very best in everyone he meets.” –  Again, a head shaking moment as we recall that during the debate over the stimulus package, he replied to a republican challenge to examine the spending and tax cuts with, “I won.”  He has been highly partisan and has not reached across the aisle as he pitched.  He’s formed a business council and hasn’t had any meetings with them since its inception.

Finally, neither of us understood the long movie-like video about Michelle Obama.  Who cares?  Why are they spending that amount of production money and time focusing on her?  She’s not on the ticket in November.  As a Facebook friend posted – it’s more of the fluff that constitutes these conventions.

While many will praise her speech, I don’t think it did much to advance the ticket and possibly gave some choice quotes for GOP material.  

As a resident of the state of Maryland, I can’t let Martin O’Malley’s speech go without comment.

1.  “Democratic governors, with the support of our president, are leading their states forward–putting job creation first, balancing budgets, protecting priorities, making the tough decisions, right now, to create jobs and expand opportunity. “  – Really?  70% of the jobs added since 2010 have been in states with Republican governors.  Maryland had to have an extended special session just to pass a budget.  This is in a state where the Democrat party has a huge advantage (2-to-1 and controls the legislature as well).  Out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, there are 29 states with Republican governors and 21 with Democrat governors (or mayor) and 1 Independent.  The GOP enjoys a 62% success rate in a balanced budget for their states while the Democrats have a 21% success rate.  Of the states that have a budget shortfall for FY13, the GOP states average a shortfall of just over 5% of the FY12 budget while the Democrats average 8.4%.  So what data is Gov. O’Malley looking at to draw these statements?

2.  “With 29 months in a row of private sector job growth, President Obama is moving America forward, not back!” – I’ve mentioned the job growth issue above with Mrs. Obama and we’ve added jobs but at a glacial pace towards a recovery.

3.  “As we search for common ground and the way forward together, let’s ask one another–let’s ask the leaders in the Republican party–without any anger, meanness or fear: How much less, do you really think, would be good for our country? How much less education would be good for our children? How many hungry American kids can we no longer afford to feed? Governor Romney: How many fewer college degrees would make us more competitive as a nation?”  – have you ever asked a liberal the converse of the question without anger, meanness or fear?  “How much more in taxes should people pay so we can have record number of people not working? or paid to failed green energy companies that don’t add any jobs to the economy?”

If this is the best that the Democrats can trot out – because you know that VP Biden is just going to scream and yell (per the DNC’s direction) and one can only guess at how Bill Clinton will leave things when he wants 2016 to be Hillary’s chance – I’d take the GOP every day and twice on Sunday.  Just a reminder – click here.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.