The Hollywood Liberal

Chris Christie: The Statesman
Robert Costa, National Review
He may be a YouTube sensation, best known for arguing with lefty hecklers, but Governor Chris Christie’s keynote speech late Tuesday was a temperate oration, forceful yet muted.“Frankly, that is the Chris Christie I know,” says Pennsylvania congressman Pat Meehan, a former United States attorney who has been friends with the New Jersey governor for years. “The attack-dog part is what the media covers, but he has been a positive, forward-thinking, aggressive guy since the first time I met him.” 

Nomination Secure, Romney Pitch Starts
Jeff Zeleny, New York Times
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts who has aspired to reach the White House since his father first sought the office four decades ago, was nominated by the Republican Party here on Tuesday as its choice to become the 45th president of the United States.The elevation of Mr. Romney at the Republican National Convention completed his six-year quest to navigate the contours of a changing party and opened a well-choreographed effort led by his wife, Ann, to swiftly reintroduce him to Americans in the hope of gaining the trust of voters and bolstering his campaign to defeat President…

Ladies Night: GOP Speakers Answer Dems
Caitlin Huey-Burns, RCP
TAMPA — Republicans have been chafing at the Democrats' signature 2012 campaign narrative that the GOP has embarked on a “war on women,” but they have struggled with how to counter it.On the first night of their convention here Tuesday, however, the GOP gave an answer. It came in the form of 10 female speakers, including Ann Romney, along with the imparted wisdom from a Sicilian-American woman who passed away eight years ago — the mother of keynoter Chris Christie.Ann Romney was hardly coy. "I love women!" she told the appreciative crowd, many holding up…

Democrats Play the Race Card – Again
Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times
Huzzah, America, our centuries-old struggle with racism and bigotry may be coming to an end.This news was confirmed by none other than Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology and the author of 18 books on race, racism, racial history, black culture, and black history. Suffice it to say, he knows a lot about prejudice and bigotry.Yet in response to Mitt Romney's lame joke about not needing a birth certificate to prove he was from Michigan, Dyson proclaimed, to the approval of a collection of sage pundits on MSNBC, that Romney was resorting to "some of the basest, most…

GOP Adults Begin Takedown of Obama
Charles Hurt, Washington Times
TAMPA, Fla. "” Ron Paul can justifiably take credit for deeply imprinting on the Republican Party agenda this year.Though he was a pariah four years ago, his fierce defense of liberty, fiscal conservatism and containment of the federal government guided every campaign in the endless and tumbling Republican primary at least to some degree. Mitt Romney's announcement this week that he supports auditing the Federal Reserve is but the latest example of Mr. Paul's fingerprints.But it is another Paul who deserves nearly as much credit for shaping the current Republican…