GOP Convention: Tuesday Night Drinking Games

Last updated on February 9th, 2013 at 05:45 am

Whether anyone is ready for it or not, the Republican National Convention is in full swing. Though it is likely to be one of the dullest affairs in recent memory, hurricane warnings and the mutiny threats of Ron Paul supporters aside, conservative media outlets certainly can’t be accused of understatement. This morning’s online edition of The Washington Post did its level best to drum up the kind of hype typically reserved for community sporting events like the Super Bowl or the recently-concluded Summer Olympics. The paper’s TV section published a piece entitled, “Today in RNC TV: Where to watch the Republican National Convention.”

Can you picture it? Viewing parties at restaurants, bars and taverns across the nation! Drinking games! Take a shot every time a speaker calls President Obama a socialist! Do a keg stand for each each personality present who represents an assault on women’s rights! Can you imagine the drunkenness? Ah yes, these parties would outdo Prince Harry’s recent bout of Vegas revelry, and the naughty monarch and Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan boast roughly the same percentage of body fat.

Barring any last-minute interference from Tropical Storm Isaac, The Post reports that “At least 13 networks are covering the Republican National Convention in Tampa this week. Tuesday night, primetime events include a speech from Ann Romney, and Gov. Chris Christie with the keynote address.” Tampa, land of lot lizards and strip clubs, does seem like a fitting locale for the revelry. After all the city is nearly 63 percent Caucasian, Florida at large contains a disproportionate number of senior citizens and the State boasts an absence of individual income tax liability. If only there wasn’t that pesky business to avoid about Ryan’s plan to demolish Medicare as we know it, the site of the convention would be a mutual admiration society unparalleled.

While the GOP establishment celebrates its whitewashed, wealthy male homogeny, Ron Paul loyalists did threaten to make things interesting for a moment. However a last minute bargain deprived excited liberals and centrists from an anticipated burst of schadenfreude, the still-inevitable showdown between the Tea Party crackpots who have hijacked the conservative movement and the dwindling number of rational party members fighting for survival. Instead, ABC News reported “a compromise on Republican Party rules will likely prevent a convention floor fight on Tuesday. Republican National Committeeman James Bopp…explained the impetus for the proposed change, in the first place, as fear that Ron Paul supporters bound to Mitt Romney would break party rules and instead vote for Paul.”

Some events are just too delicious a prospect to actually occur. Imagine the embarrassment. Pundits and writers have been saying for years now that Mittens is the candidate so divisive and boring that even his own party is conflicted. Conventions are supposed to be about unity, no matter how forced. Too see this illusion crumble to pieces on national television…well it was a nice idea.

Instead we’ll be treated to inspiring words from ultimate Stepford wife Ann Romney, she of the tearful tithes, and Chris Christie, the popular Governor of New Jersey, considered a rising star of the Republican party. Supposedly the poster boy for responsible fiscal austerity, which may influence the content of his remarks, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman had a go at Christie’s pretension yesterday when he observed, “The Governor was willing to cancel the desperately needed project to build another rail tunnel linking the state to Manhattan, but has invested state funds in a megamall in the Meadowlands and a casino in Atlantic City.”

It may be wise to plan ahead and take the day off of work tomorrow (provided that eight years of the Bush regime left you with a job) if you plan to indulge in the Convention drinking game that I favor: a sip for every hypocritical utterance. Cheers!

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Becky Sarwate

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