Many people have analyzed the speeches by Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee from last night at the Republican National Convention. Here at Zembla, we are focusing on more important matters: namely, the state-by-state roll call vote. Enjoy the real-time observations of the awkward, tedious, and anticlimactic action after the jump.
- House minority leader John Boehner sounds drunk. Specifically, he sounds like the drunken stork from Bugs Bunny cartoons who always misdelivers babies.
Though he might just be an emotional guy:
- Who is the white guy in the American Samoa delegation?
- No one claps when the DC representative mentions the Washington Nationals. Is that because Sarah Palin is going to clean up that town? Or because they're in last place?
- The chair of the Georgia delegation "looks like Margaret Thatcher had a baby with an owl", according to someone in my house.
- Guam: "Where America's day begins...with half a can of spam and a mouthful of betel nut".
- Hawaii calls decathlete Brian Clay, "the world's greatest athlete". Sorry, everyone still thinks it's Michael Phelps. Or maybe the crowd is dissing Hawaii because of Obama's vacation there. They should have led with the Little League World Series championship.
- Massachusetts: No one in the crowd seems excited about the Red Sox or Mitt Romney. I blame Jimmy Fallon and Brigham Young.
- During Minnesota's vote:
Speaker: "Home of the delicious-but-elusive wall-eye".
My friend Joey: "They eat Wall-E?"
Later: "Did they mention how many lakes they had? OK good."
- Everyone's passing on their votes so that Arizona can be the state to put McCain over the top. This is going to get tedious. Except it would be great if some asshole state screwed it up and voted for him anyway. My money is on New Jersey for that.
- There is much more state-pride sports team gear that I would expect. Or, since it's the Republican Convention, I guess I was expecting golf clubs, polo gear, and maybe some croquet mallets.
- After the fourth time someone caps a long-winded state introduction with, "...passes" and then smirks at their own cleverness, I want to punch them in the face.
- The party chair from Virginia takes a totally gratuitous shot at John Kerry's military service before passing. Seriously, they're still lying about what he did in Vietnam? He's not even running! I'm waiting for someone to call him a flapjacker.
- Northern Mariana Islands: Passes, and the speaker is not even allowed on camera. Even the second time around, they simply cannot locate this guy. He traveled over 10,000 miles to cast his votes for McCain, yet he will not be shown on television. The C-SPAN cameramen finally give up and focus on the Hawaii sign, figuring it's close enough.
- Wisconsin must hate having to sit through the roll call vote: come on, is it EVER going to come down to them? Just another example of insidious alphabetical prejudice.
- Arizona finally votes, and oh shit, McCain did it! I was worried there might be a Ron Paul revolution for a while there, but I guess McCain is going to grab that nomination after all.
Joey: "The Republicans totally CGI-ed that confetti, just like the Olympics. Cheaters."
- I didn't realize they would still go back and call all the states that passed, which makes those guys who did their longass intros the first time look like assholes. Well, bigger assholes than before.
- North Dakota's rep says, "We are rockin in the bockin" - what? He blathers about shale reserves and the Secretary of Agriculture, and even the other North Dakotans look bored.
- Oregon weighs in, Ron Paul gets a few more votes! What's up now, progressive taxation? The Internet feels all warm and fuzzy.
- So Puerto Rico can use its first speaker to introduce a different speaker to cast its gratuitous votes? I guess once you're calling yourselves "the 51st state", all bets are off.
- Utah's speaker boasts the night's most obviously fake toupee. The guy also screwed up the vote, ruining Mitt Romney's lone moment of glory.
- The Virgin Islands cast their vote for...Red Stripe! Hooray beer! The guy also gives Raja Bell a shout-out, infuriating Kobe Bryant. I definitely would have put money on a "no Raja Bell shout-outs" wager.
- Washington seemingly pushes Ron Paul into double digit votes, but the chair pretended not to hear them. This whole process just might be illegal. Stay tuned.
- Wisconsin's delegate mentions Brett Favre, who is still on the fence about whether he'll retire from the electoral process, or return to cast one more vote this November.
- Some jerks seemed to have changed their votes away from Ron Paul, as he is left with just five votes in the final tally. Consequently, some people still yell "no" on the confirmation - they really want that gold standard back. Me, I just want the last hour and a half of my life back.
- In conclusion, Ron Paul and the delegation from the Northern Mariana Islands would be getting good and drunk tonight, except he doesn't like minorities.
