Let me finish tonight with what to watch for tonight at the Republican convention opener.
One: be on the alert for the tribal messages, the war drums of racial division. Listen for the word "welfare." That's a good one. Listen for the charge that you are working hard, but someone else is getting a free ride courtesy of President Obama.
If that doesn't get you going, wait for warnings that your Medicare benefits are being skimmed to pay for Obama's health care recipients—another case where the good middle class family is getting shorted so the poor minorities get something for nothing.
Then try and hear one person tonight from the platform even mention the radical stuff they've tucked into the Republican Party platform for 2012. Listen for the Fourteenth Amendment rights being pushed for the unborn, the absolute hardline against marriage equality, the wild demand for big ammo magazines, and also for the right to carry concealed weapons across state borders and all sorts to concessions to the NRA.
You'll hear none of this, because ladies and gentlemen—that stuff isn't for you. It's for the hard-nosed, demanding interest groups that now control the Republican Party.
But pay no attention to those men behind the curtain. They are only the people pulling the strings. Pay attention, instead, to the relentless dog whistle to the white voters, a whistle that treats black people with more historic disdain and treats white people like well-trained canines.
