Sitting on the tarmac in Huron amidst a three-hop flight could drive some people to despair... or at least to quit their Pierre job and move to Sioux Falls. It drives Tony Venhuizen to write one more blog post for his guest gig on Mr. Montgomery's Political Smokeout (and I assume Mr. Montgomery and that Sioux Falls paper will invite some passionate Democratic partisan to live blog the Dems' big show in Charlotte, right?).
The Displaced Plainsman makes the observations that good party-boy Venhuizen cannot: that the Republican convention showed the GOP's sloppy worship of celebrity, cynical postmodernism, and sheer mindlessness.
But while waiting for the Pierre puddle-jumper amidst the smell of cattle and corndogs wafting up from the State Fairgrounds, Venhuizen makes two substantive observations. First he notes that low TV ratings for the convention probably don't mean much, since folks who are really interested in the convention can get it all online. (Take that, Nate Silver!)
Then Venhuizen thanks us bloggers for our noble patriotic work:
...I want to say "thank you" to bloggers. Having written several thousand words in five days, I have a new appreciation for how time-consuming this is. Blogs promote big ideas and small attacks. They spread information and misinformation. They encourage the exchange of ideas and the exchange of insults.
In short, blogs are free speech. They drive our political discourse by asking us to read and to think [Tony Venhuizen, "Final Thoughts," Political Smokeout, September 1, 2012].
Asking us to read and to think... don't forget: we also ask everyone to speak. The First Amendment works best when it's interactive.
Anyone know who the democrat will be that gets something like a 15 part series on the Political Smokeout site?