Top Items:
Benjy Sarlin / Talking Points Memo:
Clint Eastwood Delivers Bizarre, Rambling Speech To Empty Chair — TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood opened up the primetime portion of the Republican convention with a rambling, mumbling and often incoherent address next to an empty chair that was meant to represent President Obama.
Discussion:
The Raw Story, Towleroad News #gay, CANNONFIRE and The Hinterland Gazette
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Washington Post:
(APPLAUSE) — So — but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw Jon Voight, a lot of people around. — Jon's here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.
Discussion:
Election 2012, Salon, Gothamist, The Atlantic Online, LewRockwell.com Blog, USA Today and The Moderate Voice
Mj Lee / Politico:
Clint Eastwood's rambling RNC speech — TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood delivered a rambling performance at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night in a speech that included the Hollywood legend speaking to an empty stool and telling an imaginary President Barack Obama …
Discussion:
NY Daily News, CNN, Pundit & Pundette, Washington Wire, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Business Insider and Capital Tonight
Byron York / Washington Examiner:
The most extraordinary story of the GOP convention — Popular in Politics — TAMPA — When CNN asked top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to assess Clint Eastwood's performance on stage at the Republican convention Thursday night, Fehrnstrom answered simply, “It's improv.”
Discussion:
The Week, Hot Air, News Desk, National Review and americanthinker.com
Politico:
Clint Eastwood RNC speech transcript (text, video) — Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a little for Mitt. — (APPLAUSE) I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what's a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out there, left of Lenin.
Discussion:
The New Republic, Law Blog and Riehl World News
Mark Murray / First Read:
Eastwood surprises GOP convention - maybe in more ways than one
Eastwood surprises GOP convention - maybe in more ways than one
Discussion:
Hotline On Call, Saint Petersblog and The Hinterland Gazette
The Caucus:
Surprise Speaker Delivers the Unexpected
Surprise Speaker Delivers the Unexpected
Discussion:
The Moderate Voice, USA Today and US Politics
Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:
Romney Aces Convention Test — A few hours before Mitt Romney spoke to the Republican convention last night, his campaign did something clever. It's normal procedure before a major speech is to release excerpts so the evening TV news shows can preview the address.
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Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Romney Vows to Deliver Country From Economic Travails
Romney Vows to Deliver Country From Economic Travails
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway, The Caucus, NBC Latino, Taylor Marsh, Washington Free Beacon and American Power
Washington Post:
RNC 2012: Mitt Romney speech to GOP convention (Full Text)
RNC 2012: Mitt Romney speech to GOP convention (Full Text)
Discussion:
PennLive.com and The Daily Caller
Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
Romney's speech: Where was the policy?
Romney's speech: Where was the policy?
Discussion:
New York Times, The Daily Beast, Daily Kos and Saint Petersblog
Jonathan Bernstein / Washington Post:
Mitt Romney in Tampa: A generic speech for the generic candidate
Mitt Romney in Tampa: A generic speech for the generic candidate
Discussion:
Swampland, Hit & Run, Bloomberg, The Reality-Based Community, The Daily Beast, Politico, Saint Petersblog, Mother Jones and The Week
Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
In Prudent Speech, Romney Seeks Role as Generic Republican
In Prudent Speech, Romney Seeks Role as Generic Republican
Discussion:
Fox News, The Week and Election 2012
Emily Friedman / ABCNEWS:
Romney to Visit Areas Damaged By Hurricane Isaac — LAKELAND, Fla. — In a last-minute change of plans, Mitt Romney will head to visit storm-affected areas in New Orleans today, skipping a previously scheduled joint rally with running mate Paul Ryan in the battleground state of Virginia this afternoon.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers, Red Alert Politics, The Lonely Conservative and NO QUARTER
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Sara Murray / Washington Wire:
Romney to View Hurricane Damage in Louisiana
Romney to View Hurricane Damage in Louisiana
Discussion:
The Rightnewz
CNN:
Romney to survey storm damage in Louisiana
Romney to survey storm damage in Louisiana
Discussion:
New Orleans Times-Picayune and The Hinterland Gazette
Steve Holland / Reuters:
Romney takes lead over Obama with convention “bounce”: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Romney takes lead over Obama with convention “bounce”: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Discussion:
Business Insider, Hot Air, Saint Petersblog and Washington Post
Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill:
Ann Romney: Mitt showed the ‘deepest part of his soul’
Ann Romney: Mitt showed the ‘deepest part of his soul’
Discussion:
Politico, ABCNEWS, The Caucus and Connecting.the.Dots
Michael O'Connell / Hollywood Reporter:
‘Honey Boo Boo’ Ratings Top the Republican National Convention — The TLC series hits another high in its fourth episode, nearing 3 million viewers and topping cable news and broadcast network coverage of the RNC among adults 18-49. — Perhaps we spoke too soon.
Discussion:
Addicting Info, Business Insider and Balloon Juice
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Sheelah Kolhatkar / Business Week:
Exclusive: Inside Karl Rove's Billionaire Fundraiser — On the final morning of the Republican National Convention, Karl Rove took the stage at the Tampa Club to provide an exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican party's highest-earning and most powerful donors.
Discussion:
Politico, The Hill, GOP 12, Mediaite, The Raw Story and Public Policy Polling
William Kristol / Weekly Standard:
What War? — The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan.
Discussion:
The Maddow Blog, ABCNEWS, The Hinterland Gazette and Swampland
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:
Monetary Policy since the Onset of the Crisis — When we convened in Jackson Hole in August 2007, the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) target for the federal funds rate was 5-1/4 percent. Sixteen months later, with the financial crisis in full swing, the FOMC had lowered the target …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, New York Times, FT Alphaville, Business Insider and Mother Jones
Danny Shea / The Huffington Post:
Michael Moore: Mitt Romney Will Win In November (VIDEO) … REACT: — FOLLOW: — Mitt Romney, Michael Moore, Video, HuffPost Live, Josh Zepps, Shadow Conventions 2012, Money In Politics, Shadow Conventions 2012, Politics News — Filmmaker Michael Moore joined HuffPost Live Thursday …
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys, The Daily Caller, Datechguy's Blog, The Rightnewz, Weasel Zippers and The Raw Story
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Jonathan Martin / Politico:
No silver tongue, but Mitt Romney gets job done
No silver tongue, but Mitt Romney gets job done
Discussion:
Capital Tonight and No More Mister Nice Blog
Kenneth P. Vogel / Politico:
David Koch breaks from GOP on gay marriage, taxes, defense cuts — TAMPA, Fla. - Billionaire industrialist David Koch, who is helping steer millions of dollars to elect Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans, on Thursday told POLITICO he disagrees with the GOP's stance on gay marriage …
Discussion:
Addicting Info, The Raw Story, Advocate, Towleroad News #gay, Red Alert Politics and Prairie Weather
Steven Hayward / Power Line:
The One Line To Rule Them All — I generally agree with Scott that Romney's speech could have been a lot stronger, and still had the same personal structure and done what he wanted to do with it. Who are his chief speechwriters, I wonder? Is it the same crew (McConnell and Scully) that did Paul Ryan's speech?
Discussion:
GayPatriot and Betsy's Page
David Lazarus / Los Angeles Times:
World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder — Gina Rinehart, the world's richest woman, says people who are jealous of the wealthy should work harder. — Just in case you were beginning to think rich people were deeply misunderstood and that they feel the pain …
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Amy Coopes / Agence France Presse:
World's richest woman: ‘Drink less, work more’
World's richest woman: ‘Drink less, work more’
Discussion:
Riehl World News
Eric Pfeiffer / Yahoo! News:
Reagan hologram is real, was planned for RNC debut — Despite some conflicting reports, Yahoo News has learned that a holographic projection of former President Ronald Reagan is in the works and was originally intended to debut outside the halls of the Republican National Convention this week.
Discussion:
Riehl World News, Gawker, Mediaite, Deadline.com, Truthdig and Outside the Beltway