Weekend Digest: The Republican Week In Review

For our weekend political readers:

REPUBLICAN CONVENTION SPEECHES WRAP-UP
Politico has a landing page with all of the speeches from the concluded Republican National Convention in Tampa.

GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, Marco Rubio’s nominating delivery and Clint Eastwood’s much-debated ad-lib — they’re all there.

Click on this link for full access.

DO DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS AGREE ON ANYTHING?
Well, yes, as a matter of fact they just might, says the New York Times.

In the next two weeks, during the Republican and Democratic conventions, we’ll hear a lot about the differences between the parties. How great we are. How terrible the other guy is. How we’re better on Medicare, on Social Security, on foreign policy, on defense, on education, on taxes. How they’re awful in policy realms you never even thought of.

That left me thinking: Where are the two parties closest together?

So columnist Annie Lowrey dug deep to find out.  Here’s an example:

“Tax simplification. Both parties agree on the absolute necessity of reforming the addled, inefficient American tax code.”

Want to find out more on how the GOP and Democrats align? Click here for the post.

GOP CONVENTION SLIDE SHOW
“From Lincoln to Palin.”  MarketWatch has posted a fascinating slide show of more than a century of photos from various Republican conventions. From Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt to the modern era, the shots give glimpses of the times and mood of the parties’ big party.

To view them all, click here.

THE REPUBLICAN BRANDING CAMPAIGN
Marketplace pulls in Don Goldberg, a branding and marketing strategist with BlueText in Washington, D.C. to analyze the branding efforts of Republicans at their Tampa GOP convention.

Goldberg said there were hits and misses as the GOP brand sought to reach women and younger voters.

He says Sen. Marco Rubio, who was the main person to introduce Mitt Romney, is very charismatic and therefore appealing to young voters.

At the same time, there were a lot of mixed messages, he said, especially in actor/director Clint Eastwood’s appearance in which he appeared to be lecturing an empty chair meant to represent President Obama. That didn’t appeal to either of the target audiences, Goldberg says.

Click here to hear the full interview with Goldberg’s take.

IT’S A MYTH YOU KNOW?
“Myths are reasonable statements that just happen to be untrue.”

So says an op-ed contributor for the New York Times who spins myth-busting as it pertains to the current presidential campaign.

As we approach Election Day, the number of such myths appears to be skyrocketing. Myth-busting articles from the past month include “Five Myths About Obama’s Stimulus,” “Five Myths About the U.S.-Iran Conflict,” “Top Three Myths About Medicare,” “Top Six Myths About Medicare” and, not to be outdone, “Ten Medicare Myths.”

We all love to see supposed myths debunked, but these opinion articles and blog posts are not as straightforward as they seem.

But why aren’t they, and who’s zooming who?

Get the whole truth and nothing but the truth by reading the entire piece at this link.