Rabid Liberal Rants

As the election season heats up I think we, as ordinary citizens, watching the convention coverage and the morning talk shows, listening to the left leaning or right leaning commentators, the pundits, the gurus, the historians, the know-it-alls, the O’Reillys, Limbaughs, Matthews and Olbermanns, need to remember that [IMHO] it’s all about one thing:

$$ MONEY $$

Democrats and Republicans alike need to give outlandish, roaring speeches, make fun of the other team, so that they can rally their base and bring in more money through donations and contributions to their respective parties and elections.

Pundits and commentators need to make bold predictions and make outlandish statements so that their value increases. They need to be loud, hard, and controversial. They need to be a part of the news and make news. They feed off of one another by bashing each other. And if they’re popular enough, they get invited to participate on the news/talk show circuit such as MSNBC, FOX News, or CNN. The more popular they are, the more they make, the more books they can sell, and the more viewers the programs get. The more viewers they get, the more the networks can charge for advertising. The more they charge for advertising, the more money the networks make. Also, the more viewers they have the more consumers big companies get to see products  they advertise through commercials, and the more money they make selling their products. The more money companies make, the more their stock value goes up, the more they can spend on lobbying Washington, the more they can contribute to politicians and political parties.

And around and around we go. Obviously, this is a simplified analysis, but you can get the essence of it. We just need to take everything we hear with a grain of salt. Understand where it’s coming from, and why.

What does that mean for us ordinary citizens? Maybe just more of the same no matter who gets elected.

Took some time to watch the RNC the last two nights. I thought Fred Thompson was good, along with Mitt Romney. However I thought Giuliani was horrible. I can’t understand how people would pay to hear him speak. And after watching him speak last night, I realize now why I don’t think Giuliani and McCain are good at public speaking. They take too many pauses for laughter. It seems like even if one person in the audience is laughing, Giuliani or McCain will stop what they’re saying to laugh with them. It just interrupts the flow of the speech. It’s worse then saying “Ummm” all the time and it becomes a distraction. The pauses for laughter last night made it hard to listen to what he was saying and made for a disjointed speech.

That said, I think Palin did what she had to do to energize the Republicans, even though there was a lot of truth stretching.

And I hope the media continues to scrutinize their statements, despite being bullied:

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.