ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Clint, Clinton, an Empty Chair, and the Two Conventions

Updated on January 14, 2013

There is no better example of the stark differences between the two parties than their conventions. And there is no better example of the above sentence than Clint Eastwood and Bill Clinton. Clint's Republicans have become a party of old white people (men, mostly) while Clinton's Democrats still have an appeal to young people of all races and genders. Clint and his party is desperate to define the President, after a summer of being defined by the President, and the best they can come up with is an empty chair. Clinton gave accusations of the Republican Party and Mitt Romney that stuck to the facts, and that will stick to Republicans.

When Clint Eastwood came plodding out onto the stage at the RNC, I was actually eager to hear what he had to say, not knowing that I would soon be flipping to "NCIS" (great show, by the way) as an excuse to not listen to Clint. It wasn't because of his criticisms of the President, which I had gotten used to that week. It was because of the chair. At first I thought nothing of it. Maybe he wanted to sit down. Clint has never needed to sit down in his life, but maybe he should have this time. When Clint started talking to the chair, I thought he had gone mad. When I realized that Clint was speaking to an invisible Obama, I started flipping channels. I got the joke, but it was not funny. It made Clint look senile.

After all, what are we supposed to think when an 82 year old man speaks to an empty chair? The crowd seemed to go along though, so that's okay. At least Clint wasn't alone in his delusions; the whole of the Republican party seems to have gone senile these days, for the simple reason that the Republican party has gotten old. And white, which is a bad combination, because old white people are an ever shrinking share of the population. Sure, the Republican party has its share of rising stars, many of whom are minorities, which the party was eager to show off. I wish those rising stars only the best of luck. But 86 percent of the Republican party is white, and it is mostly male, and increasingly old.

Compare this to the Democrats. As a party, things look a lot better for them in the long run, because minorities make up a large chunk of the Democratic coalition. Obama is still leading among Latinos and among women, and with both groups, he has reasons to boast of their support. African Americans support Obama by about 96 percent, and many other minority groups have little reason to love the Republicans. And of course, the Democrats have Bill Clinton. The man cannot be kept silent, ever, so the DNC decided to make him useful. As it turned out, Clinton delivered a powerful case for Obama's reelection, placed solid facts into his very specific speech, and fell in love with the crowd even as he swept them off their feet.

What more can we expect of Clinton? Like Clint, he gave an overlong speech. Unlike the Hollywood hero, Clinton gave a useful overlong speech, and he had the audience on their feet most of the time. Clint Eastwood offered the RNC an empty chair, no doubt to symbolize Obama's perceived lack of achievement. Clinton went ahead and sat in it.

The Republicans left themselves open and bare at the RNC. They had the best chance that they are going to get at defending their positions on Medicare and proposing new ideas to save the economy. They chose to waste this opportunity by going after Obama, and trying to tell us how he failed, an excuse which now rings hollow after the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Clinton spoke while the DNC was at the highlight of its show, and he slammed the Republicans hard where they should have been expecting it. Not only that, but fact-checkers (I have one below) are amazed at just how factual the former President was.

The Republican Party put forward an empty chair, and revealed their empty excuses. The Democratic Party was only too happy to fill the empty space.



FactCheck.org : Our Clinton Nightmare



working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)