It's Showtime!

Okay. The Olympics are over. They were a lot of fun, and quite memorable.

But now it's time for the two parties' political conventions, with the Democrats coming first, starting tonight. (By the way, the Democrats were foolish to schedule their convention the day after the Olympics ended--it's hard to top that spectacle, and a lot of Americans are exhausted from watching.)

For the Democrats, as it almost always is, a primary task is uniting the party. The convention should do a pretty good job of accomplishing unity. But what about going after McCain? Americans need to realize that, whatever they think of John McCain as a person, he also brings considerable baggage with him, i.e., the Republican Party that brought us George W. Bush.

Bush didn't get to be the worst President all by himself. He had a lot of help from a party that sought to politicize even the most mundane of government operations, a large cause of the administration's incompetency. McCain shouldn't be allowed to get away from his own party's legacy that easily.

That said, middle of the road Americans have some fears about Obama and the Democratic Party as well. Democrats seem to like to raise taxes to pay for all kinds of goody-two-shoes programs that don't quite work out the way they were supposed to.

Obama/Biden could effectively deal with this fear by focusing on the GOP's horrible fiscal irresponsibility and the need to get our financial house in order.

A second big fear of the independent voters who will decide the election is that Democrats are soft when it comes to foreign policy. Republicans are always creating bogeymen to rant and rave against (like Saddam Hussein, Iran, North Korea). In 1960, JFK talked tough about the Soviet Union and Cuba. Why not have Obama unleash some heavy duty rhetoric on Iran and Venezuela? It's not like he's going to have to attack them if he wins--even W hasn't done anything that stupid (yet).

Also, there's one very large piece of unfinished business out there: Osama Bin Laden. After eight years in office, Bush still hasn't rounded up this criminal murderer of more than 3000 Americans. Let's promise to get the bastard!

We hope to have some guest blogging this week from one of the Curmudgeon's friends who's at the convention. We're sure our readers will appreciate a different viewpoint for a change!