well, unless you've been napping for 24 hours it should come as no surprise that paul ryan won his primary race against his opponent, paul nehlen, but this is something that apparently went over mr. nehlen's head.
last night's news carried a very brief snippet of his 'concession speech'....more on that later....so i had to turn to alternate sources to hopefully catch a more extended version and, believe me i got more than i expected even though the abbreviated version should have given me an idea of what was in store.
to start off i have to say it wasn't the traditional concession speech i think we have all become used to. usually they come on stage to applause and possibly a few tears, surrounded by friends and family, in particular the stoic supportive spouse. after a few words congratulating one's opponent on a well-run campaign and a victory whereby 'the people have decided', we usually have a list of people they wish to thank, including the ever-present hard-working volunteers and ending with the mandatory arm-around-the-spouse and gratitude for his loving family who have sacrificed so much on this arduous journey. then applause and tears and a promise to continue the fight.
now, to be honest, the video i found seemed to cut in after he had already begun to speak so i may have missed something, but here goes.....
first of all he was alone on stage which made me ask 'doesn't this guy have a family?', which he does: a wife and two adult sons from a previous marriage. the applause was minimal, with the exception of one standing-O. the people were all seated; no milling around with cocktails for this crowd. now the part i missed from the very beginning may have included the congrats to the winner, but the way it went on i find that highly unlikely. the whole almost 10 minutes that i did see was a rehashing of all the bad things about paul ryan that made him sound like he was only fourth on the list of 'most evil', right behind satan, hitler and obama...in that order...and that keeping ryan in office was surely the precursor to the apocalypse. he also stated he was proud that his campaign had 'exceeded expectations,' which since he lost by almost 50 percentage points (64% for ryan - 16% for him) made me think that just maybe they should have aimed a little higher from the very beginning. the entire speech was as if he hadn't fully realized his campaign was over and the only thing missing was a plea for votes come election day. it wasn't until the last few seconds that i heard an almost off-hand 'oh, before i forget...' thank you to anybody, and certainly not by name. and that includes family.
the whole thing made me think that trump's expression of support was extremely appropo....one delusional fool saying 'i like you' to another and it went right to nehlen's head. i'd also like to think that the decision to bring in ann coulter (and sarah palin's endorsement of a few months back) may have had a hand in him getting royally flushed.
so, the primary's over and on to the season of debates.
i might need to stock up on the popcorn.
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