Everyone wants to be polite to Ann Romney and say nice things about her speech. What I want to know is who wrote it. Because it was the most incoherent piece of crap I’ve ever seen anyone try to deliver. She came out of the box telling us that she didn’t want to talk about politics. She wanted to talk about love. And then she didn’t talk about love for about fifteen minutes. Instead, she talked about politics. And women. And how women sigh at night just a little bit louder than men. She did eventually get around to talking about her husband, and the tail end of her speech wasn’t all that bad. But it was disjointed and awkward. Parts of it seemed like a straight-up apology for their wealth. “Don’t hate us because we’re rich cuz it’s hard having five boys in your living room.” The audience was flat and after the first few minutes increasingly bored and listless.
Chris Christie’s speech might have been worse. He spent the first precious twenty minutes of his primetime network airtime talking exclusively about himself and his record as governor of New Jersey. Honestly, who cares? This wasn’t supposed to be an audition for 2016. Mitt Romney was looking on mostly stone-faced, probably wondering when, if ever, Christie was going to make an argument for Romney’s presidency.
And this merely continued a trend that went on all night. Ohio Governor John Kasich and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley spent all their time talking about how great the economies of the respective states are doing, which would seem to be a good argument for retaining the current president. Rick Santorum barely mentioned Romney at all, although he did at least repeat some of Romney’s most egregious and racially-motivated lies.
Everything about the convention today was bad. The backdrop for the speakers looked like something between a smoke-filled room and a cloudy sky, with the oscillating colors serving mainly as a nausea-inducing distraction.
The arena was half-filled and the place wasn’t miked in a way that could disguise the hollowness of the acoustics. The crowd was depressingly old and clearly up well past their bedtime. Obvious applause lines were barely noticed. Nikki Haley’s jaw was so clenched that she looked like a meth-head. Ann Romney’s dress only served to make her look more overweight than she actually is. Chris Christie scowled through his supposedly uplifting lines. Mitt Romney looked like he was deeply displeased with the proceedings.
The bottom line was that no one made the case for Mitt Romney. No one even wanted to talk about him, including his wife. The crowd didn’t seem to even be excited to be there.
But, really, Ann Romney’s speechwriter is the biggest hack in the universe. I wonder if she actually wrote it herself and no one had the balls to edit it .
I was with you until the comment on Ann’s dress. Kind of a low blow.
Yes.
you know, it’s part of the staging of the thing. The way the dress was cut, air kept drifting up the back and making it poof out. She should look perfectly nice, but instead she looked like she had a huge ass. That’s poor planning, just like the speechwriting sucked, just like the backdrops sucked, just like the sound sucked, just like their demeanors sucked, just like the placement sucked.
It was six hours of amateur hour.
Then why throw this in?
make her look more overweight than she actually is
It wasn’t needed if you wanted to comment on the dress itself. It was a bullshit comment, and you should own up to it.
If it’s true, by definition it is not bullshit. Maybe it was impolite.
Would you make a snide comment about her weight if she was a man? No, you wouldn’t. Chris Christie’s weight, in my opinion, should be an issue because he’s dangerously obese, not simply “overweight.” I saw it as more sexist than impolite.
Don’t worry, I’m sure plenty of people are going to make jokes about how Michelle is overweight despite her healthy eating program, or make racist comments about her appearance.
This sexist culture is partly responsible for the anti-choice crap we’ve been encountering, and making sexist comments about how she’s overweight whether she had this dress or not contribute to and reinforce that culture.
I’m let offended by your allegation of a double-standard and sexism than I just think you are naive:
You don’t get Oscar de la Renta at CostCo, seabe. You spend thousands of dollars for that kind of outfit. When a male politician spends that much money and puts that much thought into their appearance, then you’re damn right I’ll have an opinion on whether or not it looked good. As for her weight, she’s a little heavier than what a doctor would say is healthy, but she’s still attractive. Her dress made her look much heavier in the rear than she really is.
That’s costume fail.
Costume fail = fine. Commenting on it, is fine. But as Rachel Q below pointed out, the other part of the comment, was not.
But you actually implied that she’s overweight and continue to do so here: “Her dress made her look much heavier in the rear than she really is.” What that formulation says is that the dress emphasizes an actual heaviness and any such heaviness is undesirable. You could say: “the dress makes her look heavy”–and leave actuality out of the equation (though heaviness remains undesirable); or you could say “the dress makes her look heavy when she’s actually not”–and suggest that the dress makes a completely false impression (but again heaviness remains undesirable). But you chose to say that the dress emphasized the heaviness of an actual heavy body, and that’s a problem because now you are judging her body along with her clothes.
I guess I don’t understand the argument that I cannot observe truthfully that Ann Romney is a little overweight. She is a little heavy, if you like that word better. I’m not judging her as a bad person for her weight. I’m saying that she is a little heavy and her dress made her look a lot heavy. What I’m judging is the failure of her dress to look flattering on her body. And it’s just one piece of a whole bunch of problems they had with optics and sound last night.
Actually I think she is probably at a healthy weight, just over the ideal for feminine beauty in this country. Which is the problem.
And you’re doing it again. She’s heavy whe you compare her with women models. Is Hillary Clinton heavy? Would anyone be commenting on how her pantsuits make her look like a fat ass (I’m sure many people do, but should they? No)?
You can focus on optics if you want, but there’s a way to do it in a context that is not setting a bullshit standard of beauty that exists in the US for women. Again, you are reinforcing the patriarchy, and by strengthening something that should be brought down, we see “acceptable” discourse that we’re seeing in the GOP in terms of abortion. You might not think this matters in the grand scheme of things, and in general it probably doesn’t. “It’s just her clothes!” But by accepting this premise, it builds onto something greater, and we’re seeing it with a record number of anti-abortion bills.
TL;DR: be just as in-tune with feminist issues as you are on racial issues (and you are very much in-tune there).
Booman’s not reinforcing some patriarchical standard of female beauty, he’s commenting on how visual impressions are interpreted amongst the American mainstream, including the vaunted “swing voters,” for good or ill.
These party conventions are scripted and choreographed (or supposed to be, although this one leaves plenty of room for doubt) right down to the tiniest detail, and wardrobe and makeup are two of the most important details there are. Like it or not, people–male and female–get judged according to how well they conform to the expectations set on not just their clothing, but how flattering it is to their physique and etc.
It’s a fact of our political life, and Booman’s post is a commentary on politics. It borders on insulting to suggest that his words contribute somehow to an impending Handmaid’s Tale State simply for pointing out that a major political figure’s dress is unflattering.
You don’t advance feminist–or any–issues by attacking your best allies. Let it go. There are far worthier objects of your righteous outrage and mental acumen taking place on a by-minute basis during this convention. Go pick on them.
He did not stop at the dress, hz. Rachel Q gets it. I don’t understand why you don’t.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I can tell, this is the sum total of the offending remarks:
I read this to say that a) Anne Romney is overweight to some degree, and b) her dress makes her look more overweight than that.
Rachel Q apparently does not agree with point a), and that’s her right and prerogative. Perhaps you share in that view, and bully for you if so.
I don’t even know how big or little Ann Romney is–I don’t watch TV here and even if I did, she’s not on it much in this town–but just reading Booman’s remarks, there’s no deep lurking evil there. He’s applying normal societal standards–self-consciously and overtly–and gaming out how Ann Romney’s wardrobe (and everything else) are likely to impress the viewing audience.
It doesn’t matter if she’s overweight or not. It’s whether people in the TV audience think she is, and how her clothing affects, even accentuates, that perception. This isn’t rocket science.
I don’t remember, but I’d bet the farm that there were thousands of words wasted on how Hillary’s clothes made her look during her campaign. Campaigns, and conventions in particular, are staged entertainments. It may be silly and irrelevant, but criticizing the staging and costumes is as valid for political shows as Broadway musicals. That was clearly the viewpoint Boo was working from.
As to sexism, anybody still remember Edwards’s costly haircut and all the gushing about how handsome he was? Our celebrity culture is pathethic, but as real as anything gets in America. Boo didn’t invent it or give it a boost.
Pantsuits. It was nonstop 24-7 pantsuits. And there were other things, but the main assault against Hillary was to de-feminize her above all, and if anything was left over, to dehumanize her as well.
No one writes about the men’s suits so unlikely anyone will comment on the cost of their clothes; in all likelihood half the suits on the stage last night cost as much as Ann’s dress.
Ann Romney is not overweight, but that’s neither here nor there really. Who cares if she is?
Actually, people do write about men’s suits if they are anything other than generic. I saw a Twitter thread this morning dedicated to how awesome Roland Martin’s suit was for his appearance on CNN.
And, no, no men on the stage were wearing suits as expensive as a custom-made Oscar de la Renta dress made for the potential First Lady on the occasion of her major introduction to the American people. Everyone involved with that was primarily concerned with making Ann look beautiful in every way possible.
You may be right about the price of Ann’s dress, but I imagine every Mitt suit comes from Saville Row. To be honest, I don’t really care how much they spend on clothes. But you must concede that in general women are judged based on clothing much more than men are. Why else would Hillary Clinton confront a reporter on it?
I read your blog regularly even if I comment infrequently, and I always find it one of the most sensible places on the Internet. So I was a surprised to see what felt like to me was a gratuitous dig at Ann Romney. Everything else was, as usual, spot on.
Yes, but Hillary doesn’t wear clothes designed to accentuate her body. She wears professional clothes designed to accentuate her professionalism. She isn’t trying to look as beautiful as possible.
You didn’t see people talk about how gorgeous or stunning she looked in her custom-made designer dress, because she didn’t wear them on the campaign and she doesn’t wear them to work.
At her husband’s inaugural ball? That’s different.
All I’m saying is that that dress made Ann Romney’s butt look huge. Considering they were going for something close to the opposite, I consider it another major failing.
I was happy to let this go but you’re really digging yourself in deeper. So Ann Romney wearing a dress is trying to accentuate her body or beauty?
Lordy.
And the reporter asking Clinton the question about her designer was making no distinction between whether she looked professional or beautiful, he was asking because it’s OK to ask women and to criticize them on something as meaningless as clothes.
Earth tones, anybody?
you know why it is okay to ask women who designed their dress at the Oscars?
Because they want to talk about it. They want to look fabulous. Doesn’t matter if they are 19 or 79.
What Ann Romney was going for last night was the exact same thing, which is why she used one of the most popular Oscar designers.
I bet Condi Rice wears something completely different, that accentuates her mind and takes our mind’s off her curves. I bet no one, me included, will comment on or care about how pretty Condi looks. The reason is that she isn’t trying to look pretty.
There are plenty of men, although few of them are politicians, who wear flashy clothes to get attention. It’s okay to comment on how good or bad they look.
What you may be missing is that by current conventional standards for a women over the age of forty, Ann Romney does not appear to be overweight. That may or may not be a correct perception because she normally dresses in a way that doesn’t reveal her midriff. The point is the perception and not the reality and principally the perception of women that she needs to identify with her and vote for Mitt.
This isn’t quite right:
If that had been the objective, they would have hired Cindy McCain’s or Sarah Palin’s stylist. What they were going for was far more subtle.
How young and pretty a slightly dumpy, older mother can look when her hair and make-up are done just right. More Laura Bush and less Nancy Reagan. Except Laura is slightly dumpy and Ann either isn’t or is much less so.
Everything about the dress was off just enough to make her not look like a pampered, trophy wife. (And it had to be a dress and not a suit that hints that she may have had a job in her lifetime.) A shade of red that washed out her coloring. A frumpy fit at the waistline. And a poof that suggested a big butt. On that basis, I think they pulled it off. As I’m not in the demographic that she was appealing to — middle-aged, middle-income, white and mostly apolitical — don’t know if it was effective. Would guess not because that narrow slice of the electorate probably wasn’t watching and tend to ignore the candidates’ spouses.
Chris Christie’s weight definitely is an issue, where have you been? It is constantly commented on. And he’s not even a woman. Cut Booman a little slack, too, for the fact that he genuinely dislikes Ann Romney. In other words, more than representing “Woman”, i.e., all women of all races, creeds, colors and nationalities all over the world, past, present and future, Ann Romney might just represent her own silly self.
I don’t mean to be rude, but did you even read what I wrote? I stated that Christie’s weight is and should be an issue in my own statement. And it’s a completely different context than commenting on Ann Romney’s weight, when she’s not even overweight in the first place, nor is she running for office. If she was, then why bring up her weight; her MS would be the obvious problem.
It’d be like saying Paul Ryan is out of shape because he doesn’t look like Aaron Schock. Except we never focus on the male physique in this context, do we? That’s the point. I will not cut him slack. He’s done it before.
I don’t get what everyone is so worked up about re: Booman’s matter of fact dress comment. I googled images of Ann Romney and her red dress. I think Booman is exactly right in what he said. Someone should have talked her out of the big, poofy dress. You don’t wear a bright shiny 2,000 dollar RED dress and makeup like that if you are not trying to look pretty. And glamorous. And trying to make a big statement. But the dress was not flattering.
Bottom line: Ann Romney is now being ‘packaged’, and I think the folks doing the packaging let her down.
I don’t think this was a sexist comment at all. And it was one line in an excellent post. There are way bigger fish to fry.
She’s not overweight. I think you should retract.
Exactly. I have never been to a political event that I didn’t want to rush backstage and start stage managing. Men – don’t wear those blue shirts in 99 degree weather. Pit stains! Somebody spot that old candidate as he mounts the stairs on the side of the stage waving to the crowd and not watching his step. He’s gonna freakin’ fall! Ladies – wear a slip for god’s sake. Yadda yadda.
I take your point on this one, BooMan.
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The whole event is total amateur hour, indeed.
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It was a bit of a dickish comment, but I’m ok with that. A less dickish way of putting it would have been to say, “Ann Romney’s dress only served to make her look chunky.” No biggie for me but I can see how it would bother some and may detract from your overall point.
As for me, when you have a convention that throws nuts at a Black CNN reporter – ostensibly feeding the animals – and chants “U.S.A.” a Latina speaker because she is from Puerto Rico, I say to hell with all of them and their fat asses.
No, the point is that Mitt is a COWARD and a LIAR.
He won’t even give an honest answer when his wife asks “does this dress make my butt look big?”
“to hell with all of them and their fat asses”
Yes, that’s kind of what I meant. Let Booman be Booman.
I’ll tell you who will get the worse treatment from anyone outside the convention is Artur Davis. The black press I follow and the people I know from twitter were going all in on Artur. Dude is never gonna be able to show his face in Dem politics again. Also mark my word, Davis will never again be getting a substantial number of votes from AA. After tonight, he will be persona non grata even more so than before tonight’s speech.
Also, this sure helps no one:
“RNC Attendee Allegedly Threw Nuts At Black CNN Camerawoman, Said `This Is How We Feed Animals”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/cnn-republican-convention-black-camerawoman.php?ref=fpnews
feed
It would be really interesting to have someone feed him truth serum and find out what really happened. He thinks the party moved too far to the left? Where exactly? The Democratic establishment hasn’t, except on gay rights. Did he really think voting against the PPACA was going to get him to the Governor’s mansion, especially considering the district he represented? He basically spit in the President’s face, and his own district rewarded him in the Gubernatorial primary by telling him to GTFO. Really bright there, Artur. And he thinks he’s going to run for something in VA now?
Simple answer is that he has to eat. He was out of work, out of favor with the Democrats who drubbed him in the primary, where was he going to get a job? The Right has a network of funding mechanisms (i.e. corporate welfare) for its fellow travelers so, like Willie Sutton he went where the money is.
Beats getting a real job, I guess…
And exactly who is to blame for that?
I don’t understand why the speakers so seldom mentioned Romney. Aren’t the convention speeches vetted by the nominee’s campaign (not just Romney, but Obama, Kerry, Bush, and all the other nominees)? I thought they always had total control over everything that was said.
Aren’t the convention speeches vetted by the nominee’s campaign (not just Romney, but Obama, Kerry, Bush, and all the other nominees)? I thought they always had total control over everything that was said.
Usually, yes. So either one of two things are going on. Either they are going off script and giving Willard the big middle finger. Or the Willard campaign is lazy as all get out and just not 100% into it. I’m sure Willard is into it, but it’s hard to tell if his campaign staff is.
If you think about it, this is exactly the sort of convention the GOP should be having. They’ve totally embraced “rugged individualism,” me first, I built that, states rights, etc. Mitt Romney is just some dude from the Big Gummint, so who wants to talk about him?
Republicans, this is what you get. You used to have a national political party. Now you have a personality disorder.
The campaign is about the “undecideds.” Dassit, folks. The undecideds. Some 10% to 20% of the likely voters. The rest? The choir to which one or another pastor preaches? A sure thing. Pre-packaged and freeze-dried.
Now…which networks do you think that these “undecideds” watch, mostly?
MSNBC?
Fox?
Please.
They watch the CNN/NBC/ABC/CBS quad-networks, and they read USA Today/Time mag.
Dassit, folks. Maybe their local news stations and newspapers, but only for local news.
Get 51% of them to vote for one or the other candidate et…voilá…!!! Le winner!!!
Look at the network news programs in their entirety. Including the ads.
Please.
All kindsa mixed-race and brownish people, all having a wonderful time buying the products of Obama’s first four years,
Cheyvs.
Chryslers.
Insurance.
Big Pharma drugs.
Etc., etc,, etc.
Meanwhile, alla these old, fat, sickly-lookin’ RatPubs are blathering about “choice” and so on.
Please!!!
Big ol’ hurricane Isaac is threatening N’Orleans and and environs.
But…wait a minute!!!
Looka here!!!
When the (
unmentionable) Bush II peoples had the tiller, whut happened, exackly?Death, destruction and…
But now???
Now that the OH so caring O’Bombers are in charge, why…
Mirable Dictu!!!
Ain’t nobody drownin’ in N’Orleans!!!
Mus’ be the new guys!!!
That’s the pitch, anyway.
Will it work?
I dunno.
It’s worked for 50+ years.
Probably.
So it goes.
AG
I heard some republican talking head say that her speech was written by whomever wrote Palin’s 2008 RNC speech.
Ann Romney makes me cringe significantly more than the Mittster, and that’s saying something. They both have an air of clueless but arrogant entitlement but she’s a lot pissier about it.
this guy is truly the rodney dangerfield of politics.
Based on their convention speeches in 1988, in 1992 the Democratic Party should have nominated Ann Richards instead of Bill Clinton.
And then there are the Zell Miller and Sarah Palin performances at recent GOP conventions.
Too be this bad, the GOP this year must have put some serious effort into besting these previous convention moments.
Hope there are some folks next week who will talk English instead of politicianese.
The Republican Party spent decades building up its “brand” precisely so they can run shitty candidates and still win because their voters don’t vote for candidates, they vote for the (R). Or against the (D), more likely.
But they’re getting lazy and sloppy. If they stop pretending to care about candidates — or the truth — then even the rubes might start to catch on.
When their convention example of a successful entrepreneur is a woman that has milked every possible government program for small businesses — multiple SBA loans and government contract set-asides for women and minorities — could it be more obvious that the GOP’s got nothing?
But it was truly weird to hear Ann Romney listing the challenges that women and mothers face that have been exacerbated by GOP/neo-liberal economic policies and as a reason to support Mitt. Borrowing from an old observation: The difference between Ann Romney and a women raising five children in poverty is two men: her wealthy daddy and a privileged husband. Except the latter wouldn’t be callous enough to deprive other poor women and children food and health care.
Seems like I still remember a time when people would be ashamed to use their diseases and afflictions as marketing tools. I’ve reached a point where I know a number of people with serious illness, including MS and cancer. Maybe one of them plays the pity game a bit, but the rest don’t want to make their condition into something that defines them. They still think dignity is a good thing. So it came as kind of a shock to watch Ann Romney trying to turn her illness to political advantage. Having worked in PR, I know exactly the kind of conscious, cynical manipulation that went into the script.
Aside from that, the parts I heard were just weird, like somebody reading a script from The Bold and the Beautiful, full of empty Hallmark moments and the most sickening kind of worn-out sentimental cliches. They actually hurt to listen to. But I’m sure the “news media” is in full gush over how “brave” and “honest” she was to “open herself up” to the salivating masses. Personally, if she was a friend of mine I’d be miserably embarrassed right now.