July 28, 2016 (Thursday)
Each of the political conventions had a roll call, answered by representatives of state delegations. The purpose is to announce the number of votes the delegation is casting for each nominee. Both conventions–Republican and Democratic–follow the same procedure, making room for short speeches by those announcing the number of votes cast by the delegation. Sometimes these little speeches can be quite colorful. I made note of what the Texas delegations said this year.
At the Republican convention, the announcement from Texas was, “Texas,the greatest job-creating state in the country, the 12th-largest economy on the planet, a state where no Democrat has won statewide office since 1992, and where every Texan has the back of our law-enforcement officers.”
At the Democratic convention, the announcement from Texas was, “Texas, the Lone Star State, home of Democratic Giants like Lyndon Baines Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, and the (unknown word) Joaqin Castro. Texas, the state where a young progressive woman named Hillary Clinton, came down to South Texas along with her skinny, tall, long-haired, bearded boyfriend named Bill, to register voters–Latino voters–in the Barrios of Pharr, Texas.”
A website quotes all the responses from all the states and ranks them. The RNC Texas delegation was ranked 39th; the DNC ranking has not yet been published.
In my opinion, the RNC Texas speech was better than the DNC speech. My advice to both delegations in this regard is, “Try to improve.” Since Texans are known for bragging, why not do it when it is expected?
Click here for a CNN article on this subject. I wrote my blog before this article was published.