From the Chicago Tribune:
In Denver's America, George Bush is the president, he's a Republican, and almost everything is his fault. In St. Paul's America, liberals are running and ruining the country, and some guy named George makes a brief cameo from a video screen, never to be heard from again. . . .
The back-to-back Democratic and Republican National Conventions sketched wildly different pictures of America, its challenges and the qualities it needs in its next president. Now the visions will collide for the two-month homestretch of the general election campaign, and the outcome could depend on which version rings truer with voters.
“It was like night and day between the two. . . . They were just describing different experiences altogether,” said Paul Green, a Roosevelt University professor of public policy who traveled from Chicago for both conventions, as he has every four years since 1984.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-two_americas_bdsep07,0,3127838.story
On a different note, the Trib says about the national conventions, "Most of all, they tell stories and set priorities—a once-in-four-years opportunity to show voters what each party is all about." Yup. And contrary to friends who think it's all a big, unnecessary show, I think it is more necessary than not, part of the social fabric of the nation.
As I remarked to one friend, You don't have to get married in front of God and everybody; you could just move in together and start shacking up. But that would be to miss the essential point of a wedding: the public affirmation of the choice you've made, and the public validation of that choice. It matters. A lot.
Which of course is exactly what we gay folks have been missing out on all these many centuries . . . but that's another post.
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