Ken Mehlman speaks, doesn't mention McCormick

I forgot to mention Ken Mehlman. He's the Chairman of the Republican National Committee and was the featured speaker last night. (Mitt Romney had to cancel, which didn't upset me. I wouldn't have minded hearing from him, but I doubt he'd have changed my mind.)

The first half of Mehlman's speech was pretty much RNC talking points. Of course, considering he's the Chair of the RNC, I suppose the whole thing was RNC talking points.

In any event, he did do a very good job of more or less vilifying the left...remind us of what happens when Democrats take control. He's a very good speaker and very, very smart. I sat in on his press conference after the speech as well, and he did a great job of handling questions.

He did take a shot at Terry McCormick, who's running for Congress in the 8th. Everyone sees John Gard as the clear favorite, and rightfully so. He has support from the state party, he has the most funds, and he's the Assembly majority leader.

However, McCormick is also an assemblyperson. You'd think that would give her campaign at least a little bit of recognition.

Nope. Mehlman talked about how we need to get "people like John Gard" into office. Didn't even mention McCormick. I don't fault Mehlman. He's just saying what the state party has been saying. They want Gard to be the only candidate. They want everyone to support him. They don't want a primary battle.

I can't fault them. Our primary is way too late, so at this point, endorsement is nice since it clears the field. If I were in the state party, I'd probably want to be solidly behind just one candidate too. I don't live in the 8th, so I'm not taking sides in the race. Still, I can't imagine McCormick's supporters were too happy with Mehlman. If they're ticked at anyone, it should be the state party, not Mehlman. The state party is who's really responsible for Mehlman's mindset that Gard is the candidate.

Whatever. Like I said, it didn't really trip my trigger, but I have a friend involved in the McCormick race, and I know it irked him. Either way, I don't see McCormick being able to pull it off. Gard has run a very good race. He actually spoke here at the convention this morning and is a very good public speaker. He's also a very good legislator.

Irked or not, McCormick probably won't be able to pull it off (state party or no state party).

UPDATE: I forgot to mention another comment that Mehlman made that I really liked. He talked about how more people watched the State of the Union Address on Fox News than on ABC, CBS, or NBC, and how it's proof that the mainstream network news is losing its grip. Of course, he went on with the reasons.... The comment that stood out to me though was on the warrantless wiretapping. He made the comment that in World War II, what would have happened if the media had released the fact that we'd deciphered Japanese and Germand codes? That would be assinine! It was a great point. Once our methods are out, the enemy finds another route. You probably don't have to worry about the government listening in anyway because that method is becoming useless as the enemy finds other routes of communication.

Not cool....