RNC - Day 1.5 - Let's Get This Party Started

September 2, 11:58 PMPop Culture ExaminerDominic Patten

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LIVE & DIRECT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE (AFP)

OK, how did Fred "LazyBoy" Thompson become the Spiro Agnew of 2008?

After President George W. Bush gave a pretty standard speech of support for his old rival John McCain via video from the White House, it looked like the first real night of the GOP convention was going to go downhill.

Then good old Fred swaggered on stage.

The direction was tight and that's what Fred, who wandered way off message in his own meandering campaign, needed to lash out at the media pundits and anyone who questions Sarah Palin's qualifications to be the next Vice-President of the United States. Having said that he whipped through it all pretty quick to get to some good old boy homespun praising of John McCain, the man who bested him so confidently in the primaries.

But that was OK because Fred hit his lines perfectly, he had his eye lines on target and, like the man who sat in the big chair in Law & Order, exhorted executive confidence, though the lines about McCain dating an exotic dancer was aimed at a very specific voting bloc.  Fred Thompson has worn many hats and played more roles over the years. He is, as his primary efforts showed, a lousy candidate. He is however probably, and I mean this as no disrespect to Ronald Wilson Reagan, the best professional actor to step on the political stage. Give the man a few good lines and he can sell anything.

Weirdly enough, especially with George W. Bush having just spoken to the convention, the way Fred was talking you'd never guess that the Republicans had been in the White House for the past eight years and running Congress for most of that. Even Vice-President Al Gore didn't run against President Bill Cinton that well in 2000. Though, to go back to Sarah Palin for a moment, the line about the Alaska Governor being the only candidate in American history, besides Teddy Roosevelt, who knows how to "field dress a moose" line was outstanding.

What is also outstanding is that huge high definition screen the GOP have up in St. Paul. It looks fantastic. And whoever is putting the clear and simple images of landscapes and slogans up on that screen sure knows how to catch your attention. It is like watching the best video art exhibition you'd never seen.

Then again, tonight the Republicans were all about grabbing you and never letting go.

As soon as former President George H. W. Bush got to his seat, the lights started going down.

In true GOP style, once things got going the pace was breathtaking even if the first few speeches were nothing special. Laura Bush, to George W. to a moving tribute to Ronald Reagan to Thompson and then BOOM! - Joe Lieberman.

As Karl Rove said on FOXNews, "remember you're talking to the people at home."

Lieberman, no great orator, had two simple messages for the people at home - "John McCain is the coolest guy I've ever met" and "Country matters more than party" That's all he had and it wasn't really enough, cause the American do care if you have an R or D after your name, that's why they choose you on their ballot. But Lieberman doesn't like the sound of that kinda music, he likes the old tunes and talking to "the people out there" he made that awkwardly clear. Though the sound of a GOP convention cheering the accomplishments of Bill Clinton, a President many of them wanted to see destroyed back in the 1990s, was surreal in an election year where weird seems so normal.

Despite the best efforts of Joe Lieberman's speech writers, these guys know how to play to TV audience and, unlike most of the DNC, not just to the crowd in the arena.

That is telling of how they know, as they have in campaign after campaign the last 36 years, how to win.

Big picture & fast moving. Not just a "vision thing" but a victory thing.

In today's America, it is all about the narrative, the production value and the credibility of the challenge. The GOP brought the curtain down on what was supposed to be the first day of their convention to respect and honor the residents of the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav. Now that threat has passed, the Republicans have brought out a night of grumpy old men. A night that is exactly what the party needed after last week's DNC liftoff and the drag of the revelations of Gov. Sarah Palin's personal and professional life.

Now, I just wish everyone would stop saying "My friends" every fourth sentence. I have a suggestion to speakers at the Republican National Convention, every time you want to say "My friends" think that you are actually going to say "Keating Five."

That's right, take that breath and rethink that line.