Lipstick and guns all part of today's political scene

CONVENTION TIDBITS —

Close the door. Give me a cup of warm coffee and a doughnut, please. Oh yeah, keep the phone from ringing, too.

I’m busy at work. Really.

This is when it gets fun in the newspaper business. The political conventions are over, and the news services are filled with political copy.

What are the candidates saying? What are they doing? What are people saying about them? It’s all there. Much of it is serious, some of it funny, and there are a few things that are interesting, but really not all that important.

Here are a few items that fall into those categories:

• Tuned in … More people watched the Republican convention on television than the Democratic convention, but not by much. Nielsen Media Research showed 38.9 million people watched John McCain accept the Republican presidential nomination on six commercial networks, compared to 38.4 million who watched the Barack Obama speech. The GOP’s Sarah Palin was right behind with an astonishingly high 37.2 million viewers listening to her vice presidential address.

• Read my lipstick … That’s the battle cry Palin was greeted with Friday in Cedarburg, Wis. The person toting the sign, Sara Rattan, 49, said Palin “makes me want to do more with my life because she’s done so much with her life at such an early age.”

• Guns, common sense … After taking one too many shots on the gun issue, Obama returned Friday to Scranton, Pa., where the issue wounded his campaign during its primary shootout with Hillary Clinton.

Obama said there are “two realities about guns” in the United States: One involves lawful gun owners; the other involves illegal handguns and automatic weapons used by criminals and “teenage gangbangers.”

“Surely, we can come up with a system that protects lawful gun owners, but at the same time tries to do something about kids getting shot,” Obama said, noting he backs the Second Amendment. “If you are a law-abiding gun owner you have nothing to fear from an Obama administration. The Second Amendment is an individual right ... people have the right to bear arms. But I also believe there is nothing wrong with some common-sense gun safety measures.”

• OK, it worked, but … Obama acknowledged for the first time the surge worked in Iraq, however, he included an asterisk with his admission, saying the Iraqi government hasn’t achieved the political reconciliation that was the ultimate goal of the surge. He maintained his position of withdrawing U.S. combat troops on an orderly timetable and ending the war.

• Who’s counting, anyway? … Republicans boasted about a record number of black delegates at their 2004 convention —167, or almost 7 percent of the total. This year, they said they didn’t bother to count. But never fear. A nonpartisan group, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, kept track. It counted 36 black delegates, which would be 1.5 percent of the GOP delegates.

• Just say “change” … Obama has built his candidacy on being a voice of change, and not surprisingly, McCain is doing likewise.

Peter Brown, the associate director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, told the Chicago Tribune there is a reason for McCain’s rhetoric: “You’ve got to be for change in this election. If you’re not for change, you’re going to lose.”

Brown said McCain is trying to run as an outsider and Palin helps him do that.

“She’s neither stodgy, nor old, nor a guy,” Brown said. “What McCain is trying to do is say ‘with this selection, I’m not what you think I am. I picked Sarah Palin, went to an outsider, governor, reformer. I’m not just another old white guy in the Senate.’”

• The Rodney Dangerfields … Community organizers say they get no respect from the GOP. “We’re the Rodney Dangerfields,” said Richard Green, of Brooklyn, N.Y. “Crime goes down, drug use goes down, and we never get credit for our work. After all, community organizers don’t do real work, they don’t have any real expenses, and they’re not real people.”

• And a few shall decide … With McCain and Obama having already locked up the vast majority of their parties — roughly 85 percent — pollsters point out only a small fraction of the electorate remains persuadable in the next two months.

“There’s not a lot out there that’s movable and they are mostly independents,”‘ said Ed Reilly, who conducted a National Journal poll reflecting the hardened attitude of voters.

ROSES AND THORNS: The hot weather hasn’t dried up the roses.

Rose: To Allen and Carol Schmidthorst, of Lima. They donated $1.7 million to help fund a new athletic complex at Bowling Green State University.

Rose: A photograph in The Lima News and a video placed on its Web site, limaohio.com, led to the arrest of James Miller, 30, of Lima. He is charged in a hit-skip accident that left a 68-year-old man seriously injured.

Rose: To Cynthia Martin, Randall Calvelage and Louis Humphries. They were awarded citizen recognition plaques by the Fraternal Order of Police.

Rose: To Katelyn Anderson, of Elida, Luke Brenneman, of Spencerville, Diana Reed, of Lima Senior, Alexis Salsbury, of Wapakoneta, and Kaylah Raines, of Columbus Grove. The five students will be recognized at the state Laws of Life banquet for their essays on the values and ideals in which they live.

Rose: To Jeff Jarvis, president of the University of Northwestern Ohio. He brought a Barnes & Noble store to the campus, complete with a Starbucks coffee shop.

Thorn: A dispute over a driveway serving two homes resulted in a Lima man shooting his next door neighbor in the chest.

Thorn: Drug agents in Allen County are saying heroin is now “on the streets in bulk.”

PARTING SHOT: If at first you do succeed, try not to look surprised.

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