Republicans are asking “Are we better off today than we were four years ago?” At Wednesday night’s DNC convention, Democrats largely ignored the question and, instead, focused on those issues that divide America. That, along with an attempt to quiet a controversy that threatened to overshadow Tuesday’s fairly powerful first night.
On Tuesday, the DNC confirmed their party platform that included no mention of “God” or of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. This provided much ammunition for Mitt Romney, who only one month ago visited Israel and proclaimed Jerusalem as her capital. This also concerned a number of Democrats, so they moved to re-vote – three times – to put these two issues into the platform. At least half the crowd yelled “No” and booed loudly when the motion was adopted. In the beginning, these issues were merely missing from the party platform. Now we know why.
Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, repeated the false narrative that Barack Obama has created jobs. She stated, “Jobs are central to the American dream – and President Obama has focused on jobs from day one.” The reality is that from day one of Obama taking office, America has had the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.
Tuesday night, the head of NARAL took center stage. Wednesday night, the president of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards got her chance to curse Republicans for not wanting taxpayer money to go towards paying for abortions, something that many Americans abhor. As expected, Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Governor Ann Richards, fit the issue into the Democratic ‘War on Women’ strategy. She stated, “This year, women learned that if we aren’t at the table, we’re on the menu.” She got what she wanted, a seat at the Obama table.
Sandra Fluke, an activist attorney who was stopped from participating in a government hearing on contraception, painted the GOP as monsters. She said that if Romney is elected President, it would be “an America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it; in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again; in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve help, and which don’t.” This, all from the GOP not wanting to fund abortion or to force religious institutions to have to provide contraceptives.
Benita Veliz was the first undocumented worker to address a party convention. Veliz is an advocate for the Dream Act, an undertaking that has failed to gain acceptance in Congress by many Republicans and Democrats, as it has been seen as being unconstitutional, a way to encourage mass amnesty into the U.S., and an offense to legal immigrants who work hard and pay tremendous fees striving to become American citizens. Veliz said, “I have had to live almost all my entire life knowing I could be deported just because of the way I came here.”
Bob King, the president of United Auto Workers (UAW), praised Barack Obama and attacked Mitt Romney for their respective stances on the auto industry bailouts. He gave credit to Obama for saving Chrysler and G.M., but he spoke nothing of his organization’s role in causing the companies’ collapse. Indeed, it was the unions that created the disadvantage America’s big three auto manufacturers had with their foreign competitors. If it weren’t for the auto unions, there would have been no talk of bailouts to begin with – bailouts which benefited UAW.
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