Rubio and Romney

The story last night was about Rubio and Romney. Not Clint Eastwood and Invisible Obama. That was just bizarre. A Reagan hologram would have worked better.  But it wasn't important.

Senator Marco Rubio was eloquent. He was passionate and he spoke truth.

These are tired and old big government ideas. Ideas that people come to America to get away from. Ideas that threaten to make America more like the rest of the world, instead of helping the world become more like America...

A few years ago during a speech, I noticed a bartender behind a portable bar at the back of the ballroom. I remembered my father who had worked for many years as a banquet bartender.

He was grateful for the work he had, but that's not the life he wanted for us.

He stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room.

That journey, from behind that bar to behind this podium, goes to the essence of the American miracle — that we're exceptional not because we have more rich people here...

 And in conclusion:

The story of our time will be written by Americans who haven't yet been born.

Let's make sure they write that we did our part. That in the early years of this new century, we lived in an uncertain time. But we did not allow fear to cause us to abandon what made us special.

We chose more freedom instead of more government.

We chose the principles of our founding to solve the challenges of our time.

We chose a special man to lead us in a special time.

We chose Mitt Romney to lead our nation.

And because we did, the American Miracle lived on for another generation to inherit.

Romney delivered maybe the best speech of his life. He was likable, and earnest, and powerful, and everything he usually does not portray himself to be. And the video tribute beforehand was one of the best I've seen. It humanized him, and showed him at his best: leading at work and being with his family. Too bad Eastwood came afterwards, but I digress.

In his speech, he heralded women:

My mom and dad were true partners, a life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, “Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?”
I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

 Truth:

How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America?  Many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.

And the bottom line:

What is needed in our country today is not complicated or profound. It doesn’t take a special government commission to tell us what America needs.
What America needs is jobs.
Lots of jobs.

Onward to November!