What we witnessed tonight was not a shot across the bow to John McCain and the Republican Party, it was a torpedo slamming directly into the side of ship.
I've been critical of Team Obama's passive response to the McCain campaign since wrapping up the nomination, but this convention was a masterful display of craftmanship and message that built to a crescendo that will be heard all the way through November.
It was Bears/Patriots in the Super Bowl. Hell, it was Ivan Drago v. Apollo Creed. It was an ass-kicking of such clear and awesome brutality that even the talking heads and GOP pundits don't yet know how to respond.
So how do the Republicans react when they finally clean off the blood and launch their party?
They will go over the top to bat shit crazy.
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The Republicans are very, very bad at defense. When they get popped in the mouth, they lose it. They let slip the mask.
In 1992, the Democrats also orchestrated a near pitch perfect convention. More importantly, they hit George Bush and the Republicans right between the eyes and put them on their butts.
The GOP reaction? The 1992 culture war convention. They seethed, they frothed, they screamed and they attacked, bu they gave no real reason for re-election. They had nothing but bile.
When Republicans are poked with a stick, they flat out lose it.
Now let's think of what we have seen from them in recent memory, even after we have been fuzzy little teddy bears.
We had Zell Miller frothing at the mouth, yelling about spit balls.
We had the detritis that is the Republican rank and file wearing purple bandaids and yukking it up at their cleverness in smearing a war hero.
We had girly men and tap dancing on the bones of 3,000 dead Americans.
And that was when we didn't even lay a glove on them.
The GOP convention is going to be an over-the-top hate fest the likes of which we have never before seen. The 1992 Republican Party was much more moderate than the band of Schavio-DeLay-Rove troglodytes runnign the show today.
Mark my words, race will play the bigget part in this meltdown. The GOP is already outraged about this man being "presumptuous", which even David Gergen pointed out is simply code for reaching above his station, for being "uppity".
The mask will slip. Trust me. I've gone undercover at GOP events in order to hand out Democratic message points. When they get hit in the mouth and think they are all with their own, they say what they really mean.
A delegate it going to be caught on tape calling Barack Obama the N word. A delegate will call him a fag. A delegate will say he is a baby killer.
The mask will slip, and they will panic even more when the light is shone on them.
The bottom line is simple: the Republicans get away with that type of stuff when it is subtle. When it is below the surface. The press admires them for pushing those buttons without wearing the hood.
In Minneapolis-St. Paul, the mask will slip and the hood will come out.