[Peace-discuss] Fw: A Ruling Class opinion about the Eastwood Speech

[David Johnson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Johnson 
To: david johnson 
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2012 10:18 AM
Subject: A Ruling Class opinion about the Eastwood Speech


  a.. 
  Frederick E. Allen, Forbes Staff 

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9/01/2012 @ 9:37AM |23,409 views 
How the Clint Eastwood Fiasco Was Allowed to Happen
  
I wrote yesterday that I felt that Clint Eastwood's hijacking of the most crucial hour of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, the candidate's most precious opportunity to get himself across, with a bizarre, off-color improv speech directed at an empty chair, ultimately reflected badly on the leadership of the candidate himself. It simply shouldn't have been allowed to happen, I wrote.

Now The New York Times has gone behind the scenes to find out how it happened. In short, it began with Mitt Romney himself:

  Mr. Romney privately invited Mr. Eastwood, of "Dirty Harry" fame, to speak after the actor had given him a gravelly, full-throated endorsement at a star-studded fund-raiser at the Sun Valley Resort Lodge in Idaho this summer. "He just made my day. What a guy," Mr. Romney joked with his donors that night, flanked by the fake log columns of the lodge.

  Thus began an effort by Mr. Romney's campaign over several weeks to inject a Hollywood-style surprise into the highly scripted, tightly controlled convention where Mr. Romney would formally accept the nomination of the Republican Party to be president.

 What Does Clint Eastwood Tell Us About Mitt Romney's Leadership?  Frederick E. Allen Forbes Staff 
Then the campaign's usual discipline was allowed to break down:

  Romney advisers so trusted Mr. Eastwood, 82, that unlike with other speakers, they said they did not conduct rehearsals or insist on a script or communicate guidelines for the style or format of his remarks.

That, it turns out, was a huge gamble. To make matters worse, Eastwood asked for that chair just before going onstage, apparently with no one high-level enough nearby to ask him what he wanted it for. Why wasn't anyone paying attention? And then he ignored both his allotment of five minutes for speaking, going on for 12, and a flashing red light telling him his time was up.

The campaign evidently felt a need for a big surprise at the climactic moment of the campaign and then let it be too much of a surprise. But it's also true that, as the Times puts it, "the speech was a reminder of how fleeting a successful political moment can be, and how carefully staged events can be upset by an unpredictable turn."

Read the Times article here.
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