A Few Comments from the GOP Convention
I attended the Republican Convention last weekend. May I share some impressions from my seat among other delegates?
Steve Abbot has never been a candidate himself, while his political experience is in running Susan Collins’ campaigns behind the scenes. He appears to be “favorite son’ of the party’s insiders. Abbot sometimes came across as nervous while speaking to the convention. And perhaps with good reason, since he is a moderate/liberal like Susan Collins, and we found out Saturday that this was a VERY conservative, tea-party patriot, constitutionally conservative GOP convention!
On Saturday the delegates, including my wife and I, overwhelmingly voted to replace, completely, the official proposed party platform, which was not half-bad, but kind of luke-warm. Well, the Knox county committee had written a very strong, detailed, pro-freedom platform, and after some debate, about 75% of the delegates enthusiastically approved this proposal; it was not even close! WOW!
Later Saturday we saw and heard the afternoon presentations by each candidate.
Abbot, who went first, had an good enthusiastic parade/march by numerous supporters. His speech was OK, except that he never even mentioned or referred to the excitement from the morning vote on the platform. This was a major failure. And, it was funny, none of his supporters were left in the seated audience, so the audience was usually dead silent at most of his applause lines. It was not that way as much for the other candidates.
When Lepage had his turn, after a couple of other candidates had spoken, I was amazed. He had by far the largest, loudest, and most enthusiastic group of supporters in the parade/march! Again, no one else was even really close, though Otten and Abbott had good sized groups. And Lepage, despite having laryngitis, gave the most energetic speech.
You may like Lepage’s slogan, borrowed from an adult friend whom he knew when Lepage was in his teens. He calls it, Ten Two-letter Words: It it is to be, it is up to me. Then, he broadened it, It it is to be, it is up to us, all of us.
Now, I still think Bill Beardsley has the best ideas, the sound moral values, the proven record and character to do the best job – but Lepage is very good and he has the charisma and energy just may be to win the primary and the election.
P.S. Les Otten speaks pretty well – BUT his daughter, who introduced him Saturday, is a real ball of fire, sort of like Sarah Palin on the campaign trail in 2008, as far as her energy and passion.
