The Religious Center Blog

John McCain likes to talk about Teddy Roosevelt as one of his heroes.  So he picked a true Western hunter tough.....person as his runningmate. 

Heading into this weekend, The Dark Knight is the 9th highest money making film worldwide of all time.  Once its international tickets keep growing it will pass Return of the King to be the second highest grossing film ever.  If it doesn't pass King it will at least be the second highest domestic film. 

But Titanic still is the real King...until the final Harry Potter film opens in 2010.  Now that that final book will be split into two films, there is a change it wont pass Titanic but the foreign and domestic value of the final Potter film makes it a decent bet it will come close to the all time record. 

Democrats have to be feeling better after Senator McCain's speech last night.  Sarah Palin's performance Wednesday rattled them enough that they are dispatching Hillary to Florida and female senators and governors to every corner of the nation to shore up female vote.  Last night, Senator McCain had an opportunity to make a one term pledge and reveal new specific, moderate, reform minded policies that would show how he would govern differently than George Bush, how he would fix the economy and how he would be a reformer in the future, not just some who pushed for moderate reforms in the past.  In the past, McCain has had moderate, creative ideas on campaign finance, immigration and climate change, to name a few.  Yet his policy perscriptions last night on taxes, education, job training and energy were non creative, unoriginal and too aligned with the current Bush programs.  A one term pledge would have allowed McCain to argue his theme that he is in government to serve above politics.  As good as Palin is, she does not have the appeal to independents that a Joe Lieberman would have.  McCain had an opportunity last night to hit a home run as Palin, Clinton and Obama did in their speeches.  Instead, he settled for a double.  A good personal story, very good rhetoric about separating from Bush but no policy meat to back it up.  The ol' soldier McCain is a good shooter, but last night Obama dodged a bullet. 

Sarah Palin was very impressive last night in her speech.  She connects enough that there will be some voters who say, 'can we just vote for her.'  but it comes down to John and Barack and you have to like Barack's chances.  McCain has a chance tonight to separate from GOP label.  He has the record in the Senate to do that but he cant just talk about the past record and run against Reid/Pelosi, he needs to lay out creative ideas on health, energy, etc. that aren't typical GOP, if he does that he has a shot. There need to be bold new ideas.  Otherwise his whole ticket will pail in comparison.

Watching the convention now.  Did Rudy Guiliani just say that the Democrats are in a state of denial about September 11 because they won't use the phrase "Islamic terrorism."  Guiliani said, "Please tell me, who are they insulting when they use the words "Islamic terrorism?  They are insulting terrorists." 

Rudy is in a state of denial about what the phrase "Islamic terrorism" means to Muslim Americans.  It insults and stereotypes Muslims and divides Americans.  It is a very unfortunate statement from the keynote speaker. 

On this first day of Ramadan we celebrate the religious pluralism of our nation

Happy Labor Day to all working for the good of our nation!