Clint’s Stint

No one who watched Clint Eastwood’s short appearance at last night’s Republican National Convention, where he talked to an empty chair supposedly occupied by President Obama, will ever forget it.

It was a high-wire act, an incredibly bizarre performance that obviously was a radical departure in tone and style from every other speech at the convention, an apparently improvised stunt by a haggard looking Eastwood in a kind of Christopher Walken hairdo — but it was memorable, and I would bet that today more people have talked about Eastwood’s appearance than anything else.  Was it carefully scripted and intentional, or just ad libbing gone awry by an aging, forgetful American icon?  Was it an unforgivably vulgar effort that crudely diminished the office of the Presidency, or just an edgy lampooning of a very-full-of-himself President?  Is Eastwood losing it and on the edge of senility, or was he in character and portraying an average American reacting to what he considers to be a record of arrogance and failure?

Who knows?  I watched it again today — it’s only about 11 minutes long, although watching it last night it seemed longer — and I’m convinced that it was a highly intentional, controlled performance by Eastwood.  But, whatever its intent, the presentation was, as Kish observed, incredibly creative . . . and it got people talking about some of Eastwood’s plain-spoken criticisms and judgments.  The internet today was full of discussion of it, and of the points Eastwood was trying to make.  Don’t you think that was exactly what Eastwood was hoping for?  What are people going to remember from the 2012 Republican convention:  John Thune’s address, Rick Santorum’s remarks, or Clint Eastwood’s pungent, rambling star turn with an empty bar stool?

Twinkie Converts

When you feel that you have made a significant difference in a person’s life, it’s a wonderful day.  Tonight, I’ve got that happy feeling.

A few days ago, I was talking to a colleague who was describing the school lunches she packed for her young children.  When I innocently asked how often they got a Twinkie — a staple of my school lunches — my friend was aghast.  Of course not!  I was astonished by that response, and chided her for depriving her kids of the quintessentially American childhood joy of golden sponge cake and creamy filling, dipped in milk.  I also mentioned my views to some others, and one day this week I found two Twinkies in their original packaging on my desk.  Rather than snarfing them down myself, I donated them to my colleague and told her, in no uncertain terms, that I expected her to let her kids at least have a taste.

When I arrived for work this morning, she somewhat abashedly delivered this note to me.  It reads:  Dear Mr. Wedner, We would like more twinkies we love them.  Love Bryn [and] Coen.  As further evidence that the kids actually got to try the Twinkies, the blue paper on which the note appears is marked with some small fingerprint-sized remnants of the Twinkies’ yummy goodness.

Welcome to Twinkie World, Bryn and Coen!  You really made my day!

Mitt’s Speech, And Some Big Election Themes

Mitt Romney finally got his chance to speak last night.  I thought he gave a good speech that sketched out who he is, what he believes, and where he wants us to go and also sounded themes that are likely to appeal to many Americans who are disappointed in their circumstances and our country’s current condition.

It’s got to be tough to be the nominee at one of these conventions.  You must sit there for days while the podium is occupied by others, hoping that no one commits a crippling blunder and the message you want your party to deliver is getting through.  Yet at the same time every viewer is moving inexorably toward a “convention fatigue” threshold.  You must hope that, by the time you step behind that podium, Americans aren’t so sick to death of speeches that they can’t bear to listen to yours — and you also must hope that you can meet the hour and live up to the accolades that you’ve been receiving over the past three days.

I thought Romney did so, and I think part of the reason for that was that he gave a speech that was true to his character.  Romney doesn’t seem like an angry person or a bitter partisan, and his speech wasn’t sprinkled with inflammatory rhetoric or snide jokes about the President.  Instead, the tone was more of sorrow than anger, more of disappointment than diatribe.  Romney doesn’t want to assume the unnecessary burden of trying to convince people that President Obama is a bad person with evil intent, he just wants to help people understand that the President’s course has been misguided and unsuccessful — and that a different course will be more productive and also, incidentally, more consistent with the America we all have known and cherished.

Some of the themes Romney touched on run deep.  Americans are inveterate optimists who traditionally expect a better future for their kids and will work to make that happen — but how can you hold to that belief these days, where you can’t find that job that will allow you to move your family upward?  Americans are proud of their country’s accomplishments and heroes like Neil Armstrong — but what does it say when so many of those accomplishments are now decades old, and few new genuine accomplishments are being added to the ledger?  America is a land of many freedoms that its citizens hold dear — but how can we hope to continue to enjoy those freedoms when we are yoked to an increasingly insurmountable debt burden financed by foreign governments?

Time will tell, of course, if these themes find a receptive audience among the American people, or whether the themes that President Obama and the Democratic party sound next week win out.  That’s what elections are all about.