memeorandum: Mitt Romney's Incoherent View of Mothers (Matthew Yglesias/Slate)

1:30 PM ET, August 31, 2012

Top Items:

The most extraordinary story of the GOP convention — Popular in Politics — TAMPA — When CNN asked top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to assess Clint Eastwood's performance on stage at the Republican convention Thursday night, Fehrnstrom answered simply, “It's improv.”

Discussion: News Desk, National Review, Wake up America, The Week, americanthinker.com and Hot Air

Politico:

Clint Eastwood RNC speech transcript (text, video) — Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a little for Mitt. — (APPLAUSE) I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what's a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out there, left of Lenin.

Discussion: Red Alert Politics, The New Republic, Riehl World News and Law Blog

Washington Post:

(APPLAUSE) — So — but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw Jon Voight, a lot of people around. — Jon's here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.

Discussion: Salon, Election 2012, Gothamist, The Atlantic Online, LewRockwell.com Blog, USA Today and The Moderate Voice

Benjy Sarlin / Talking Points Memo:

Clint Eastwood Delivers Bizarre, Rambling Speech To Empty Chair — TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood opened up the primetime portion of the Republican convention with a rambling, mumbling and often incoherent address next to an empty chair that was meant to represent President Obama.

Discussion: Mother Jones, The Impolitic, The Raw Story, No More Mister Nice Blog, CANNONFIRE, Towleroad News #gay, Bark Bark Woof Woof and The Hinterland Gazette

John Nolte / BREITBART.COM:

MEDIA STRIKES BACK AFTER DIRTY HARRY DARES TO MOCK OBAMA — Newsflash: Obama can't take a joke. But we already knew that. — For four long years we've waited, hoped and prayed that some young comic would break free of the politically correct demands of The State and mock Obama …

Discussion: The Jawa Report, Belmont Club, New York Magazine, Crooks and Liars, Wake up America, Babalú Blog, The Lonely Conservative, The Gateway Pundit, Questions and Observations and Datechguy's Blog

Mj Lee / Politico:
Clint Eastwood's rambling RNC speech

Discussion: CNN, NY Daily News, The Atlantic Online, Washington Wire, The BLT, Washington Post, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Business Insider, Wake up America and Capital Tonight

The Caucus:
Surprise Speaker Delivers the Unexpected

Discussion: Politico, BuzzFeed, Daily Kos, The Moderate Voice, US Politics and USA Today

Bloomberg: Good Enough for Mitt, but What About the Rest of Us?

Michael Moore / The Daily Beast:
Thanks, Clint: You Made Our Day! — The Hollywood legend growling …

Discussion: Examiner

Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
Romney's speech: Where was the policy?

Discussion: The Daily Beast, New York Times, Daily Kos, Saint Petersblog and The Week

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Romney Vows to Deliver Country From Economic Travails

Discussion: Swampland, Washington Wire, Outside the Beltway, NBC Latino, Taylor Marsh, The Caucus, Politico, Washington Free Beacon and American Power

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
In Prudent Speech, Romney Seeks Role as Generic Republican

Discussion: Bloomberg, Washington Post, Fox News, The Reality-Based Community, Election 2012, The Week and Politico

Mark Murray / First Read:
Eastwood surprises GOP convention - maybe in more ways than one

Discussion: Liberal Values, Hotline On Call, Saint Petersblog and The Hinterland Gazette

Sheelah Kolhatkar / Business Week:

Exclusive: Inside Karl Rove's Billionaire Fundraiser — On the final morning of the Republican National Convention, Karl Rove took the stage at the Tampa Club to provide an exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican party's highest-earning and most powerful donors.

Discussion: Politico, The Hill, No More Mister Nice Blog, LifeNews.com, Hullabaloo, Mother Jones, GOP 12, The Raw Story, Mediaite, Wonkette and Public Policy Polling

William Kristol / Weekly Standard:

What War? — The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan.

Discussion: The Maddow Blog, ABCNEWS, The Hinterland Gazette, Swampland, ABCNEWS and The Agonist

Annie-Rose Strasser / ThinkProgress: OOPS: Mitt Romney Calls United States A ‘Company’

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:

Mitt Romney's Incoherent View of Mothers — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and wife Ann stand on stage at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Florida, on August 30, 2012 on the final day of the Republican National Convention (RNC). — One of the Romney campaign's …

Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill:
Ann Romney: Mitt showed the ‘deepest part of his soul’

Discussion: Politico, ABCNEWS, The Caucus and Connecting.the.Dots

Alex Fitzpatrick / Mashable!:
Romney Campaign is First to Buy a Twitter Trending Topic

Discussion: NBC Latino, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Twitter Room, more at Mediagazer »

Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:

Romney Aces Convention Test — A few hours before Mitt Romney spoke to the Republican convention last night, his campaign did something clever. It's normal procedure before a major speech is to release excerpts so the evening TV news shows can preview the address.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Washington Post, Washington Wire, The Atlantic Online and The Daily Beast

Steve Holland / Reuters:
Romney takes lead over Obama with convention “bounce”: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Discussion: Business Insider, Saint Petersblog, Hot Air and Washington Post

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:

Monetary Policy since the Onset of the Crisis — When we convened in Jackson Hole in August 2007, the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) target for the federal funds rate was 5-1/4 percent. Sixteen months later, with the financial crisis in full swing, the FOMC had lowered the target …

Discussion: FT Alphaville, New York Magazine, The Daily Caller, Mother Jones, Business Insider and Paul Krugman

Binyamin Appelbaum / New York Times:
Fed Chairman Pushes Hard for New Steps to Spur Growth

Discussion: Firedoglake and Hot Air

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Behind the Latest Palin-Fox Fight — Last night's kerfuffle between Sarah Palin and Fox News was a classic display of Sarah Palin being, well, Sarah Palin. But her Facebook outburst complaining about Fox canceling her appearance at the Republic National Convention reveals something deeper …

Discussion: Washington Wire, Hot Air, The Week, Outside the Beltway, TVNewser, The Fix, Politicker and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Michael O'Connell / Hollywood Reporter:

‘Honey Boo Boo’ Ratings Top the Republican National Convention — The TLC series hits another high in its fourth episode, nearing 3 million viewers and topping cable news and broadcast network coverage of the RNC among adults 18-49. — Perhaps we spoke too soon.

Discussion: Addicting Info, Business Insider and Balloon Juice

Aviva Shen / ThinkProgress:

RNC Delegate Offended By Presence of ‘Mexican’ At Disney's Epcot Center — During a trip to Epcot at Disneyworld, Pennsylvania delegate Mark Harris and his wife were shocked and offended to find a Mexican employee working at the amusement park's American pavilion, which showcases the different cultures in the United States.

Discussion: The Raw Story

Steven Hayward / Power Line:

The One Line To Rule Them All — I generally agree with Scott that Romney's speech could have been a lot stronger, and still had the same personal structure and done what he wanted to do with it. Who are his chief speechwriters, I wonder? Is it the same crew (McConnell and Scully) that did Paul Ryan's speech?

Discussion: GayPatriot and Betsy's Page

Kenneth P. Vogel / Politico:

David Koch breaks from GOP on gay marriage, taxes, defense cuts — TAMPA, Fla. - Billionaire industrialist David Koch, who is helping steer millions of dollars to elect Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans, on Thursday told POLITICO he disagrees with the GOP's stance on gay marriage …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Progressive Change …, Addicting Info, The Maddow Blog, The Raw Story, Advocate, Towleroad News #gay, Red Alert Politics and Prairie Weather

Alexander Burns / Politico:

Biden hits Ryan on auto plant, Romney on Bain & Co. — In Ohio today, Joe Biden will go after the most controversial anecdote Paul Ryan told in his convention speech: the tale of a Janesville, Wis., auto plant that closed in 2008 and that has not reopened. In the telling, Ryan made it sound …

Discussion: CNN

Cynthia Roldan / Palm Beach Post:

Lake Park man allegedly obsessed with Fox News, GOP is in jail after threats made to girlfriend — A Lake Park man “obsessed with Fox News and the Republican party” is in jail today after he allegedly said that he felt he was going to have to kill his girlfriend because she was a “liberal.”

Discussion: Mediaite and Saint Petersblog

Jim Provance / Toledo Blade:

Federal judge orders Ohio to allow early voting on 3 days before Election Day — Facebook Twitter Reddit Digg E-mail Print Rss — COLUMBUS — A federal judge today sided with President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and ordered Ohio to allow early voting on the three days prior to the Nov. 6 election to all voters.

Discussion: The Maddow Blog and Balloon Juice