Have you noticed, Clint Eastwood got so much attention that Romney's speech is getting relatively little? It's just as well. Romney sort of bombed, IMO.
Things started going awry not with Clint (whose appearance I really enjoyed), but with Rubio, when Rubio said, "We chose MORE GOVERNMENT instead of MORE FREEDOM."
What? The poor guy got mixed up and reversed the two terms. I was watching it with my wife and I heard the line and I said, "What the heck did he just say? Did I miss something?" I bet half the audience had the same reaction.
I don't think he realized what he'd just said. He had been doing fine up to that point, building nicely, then suddenly the rhythm he had with the audience went away. You could briefly see the mystified look on his face as he wondered why the air was suddenly going out of the balloon.
Then, instead of having Romney simply walk out onstage into the applause, they had him awkwardly work the line -- shaking hands, pointing his finger, kissing and hugging as he walked through the crowd, while his family and friends and supporters had to keep applauding with frozen smiles for what seemed like a painfully long time.
Romney didn't look very good doing that, I thought. He looked hurried and off-balance. And face it, while he's got a great physique for a man his age, he moves like Herman Munster.
After he finally got to the podium we had to watch several minutes of Mitt hitting his various "Aw shucks" poses. I'm prepared to believe Mitt is the humble guy he wants us to think he is, but he needs to improve his body language. It's possible to appear confident and humble at the same time. He needs to take some Reagan lessons.
After the good setups from the biographical videos and the speeches from Ann, Condi, Ryan and others, I thought Mitt was quite a letdown. So really, I think it's just as well that everyone is talking about Clint. |
