It’s telling that in this little Politico round-up asking political types to vent their rage at the networks for choosing talent shows and police procedurals over democracy, even people very practiced in the feigning of outrage struggle to muster any mouth-foaming indignation. That the plot development of Two Broke Girls should be interrupted so Ann Romney can tell us about motherhood on nine channels at once seems not to be an article of faith.
Of course Isaac has delayed the convention by at least a day, and I, for one, appreciate a little anarchy and uncertainty in a campaign that turned dull the moment someone who knew all the ‘Stans became the center of it. (Oh, for the days when I could walk two blocks from my house in Iowa and watch Newt Gingrich promise “an explosion of brain science,” Michele Bachmann rail against lightbulb efficiency, and a then-ascendant Rick Perry received like a third-world dictator sprinkling sinecures among the supportive local townsfolk.) Anyway, should you choose to watch or just read the people who are paid to watch, here, in no sensical order, are some things we might be talking about over the next week:
1. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday. In a few weeks, the DNC will do its best to convince women that Republicans are out to impoverish, impregnate, and silence them. Even Natalie Portman says so! Meanwhile our Tampa-based Republican infomercial strives to demonstrate chromosomal diversity. So if Huckabee starts sounding even a little Akin-esque, as is his habit, he’ll be giving a gift to Democratic speechwriters.
2. Much-hyped Utah congressional candidate Mia Love on Tuesday. There’s a lazy creative writing exercise where students pluck unlikely combinations of characteristics from the air and try to cobble together a character. For example: Haitian-American, Mormon, mid-30s, ovaries, political candidate. Love is Utah’s first black female mayor and possibly about to become the first black woman Republican congressperson, which is hard to even say. Also, she nabbed a coveted primetime speaking slot.
3. “Reagan Legacy Video” on Thursday. Just kidding. Don’t watch that.
4. Ann Romney on Tuesday. I don’t buy that voters want their president “humanized,” but if the only thing keeping you from a Romney vote is the lack of recognizable human emotion, Ann may come to the rescue with heartwarming anecdotes about Romney family trips to Costco and such.
5. Isaac on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wisely steering clear of the convention, Isaac will probably hit someplace west of Tampa—possibly New Orleans. A severe hurricane will mean, quite rightly, even less coverage of the Republican pageant.
