What I saw at the conventions?
Once again the Democratic Party is trying to play by the rules of civility and common sense. They expect the voters to pay attention and evaluate platforms. They expect voters to make a judgment based on policies.
And once again the Republicans are running a race based on lies, fear, villainization of their opponent, and division. Chants of ZERO, and DRILL BABY DRILL, are just obvious examples on the surface of how mindless and ignorant these people are. One notch away from an angry mob with pitch forks.
Here's how I can summarize the two conventions in a nutshell:
Democratic National Convention =
We are black, white, yellow and brown. We are young and old. Gay and lesbian and straight. We are one country with one common goal.
Here are their policies and here are our policies.
Their policies have gotten our country into the situation we are in. McCain's policies are more of the same.
We think our policies are better.
We have had enough. If you want change, vote for us.
Republican National Convention =
We are white and rich and old (or young and in private school).
Obama is a totally inexperienced fake.
He stands for all of these terrible things and says all of these terrible things that we say he did (even though he doesn't).
He has never done anything.
We laugh at him.
Our world is dangerous. There are people trying to kill us. They have killed us on 9/11 and they want to kill us again. If Obama is president, it would be very very dangerous. We would all surely die.
John McCain is a good man.
Did you know that he was a POW? That tells you how good of a president he would be.
Pay no attention to the record or the last 8 years.
Palin has executive experience.
Did you see her? Didn't she make you feel good all over? Palin has done all of these things that we say she has done (even though she didn't really do them).