Protester's Outnumbered by Riot Gear Clad Police At RNC 2012, Tampa

The sight outside the Republican National Convention this year is almost humorously grotesque.  A relatively miniscule number of protesters, many affiliated with the Occupy movement, are finding themselves virtually outnumbered by a large number of Security forces.  I want to to be honest, it's so much better than I expected.  The Security forces are immensely technically co-ordinated, using a multitude of anti-riot devices and techniques - making their own orchestrations the main subject of interest regarding the protest movement outside the now infamous Republican National Convention.  Inside the convention last night, numerous speakers addressed the delegates in a properly exceptionalist fashion - while outside, more than likely, a high tech counter-insurgency op was taking place.  It's pure magic, in the style of nearby Disneyworld, and I'd wager many Occupy protesters will find themselves consumed by the electricity surging around the growingly popular and all around entertaining RNC.  It's as if the state controlled media has had %100 percent of the mainstream narrative so far, and for those willing to indulge in the ole style big tent political scene now get a brief look at what presentation of platform looks like in a substantive context - that is, outside of Wolf Blitzer's gaping maw.  I think we should sound the air raid siren's every time a politician mention's the constitution, take a shot every time Barack is denounced, and fire a nuke every time the spirit of excpetionalism is provoked

The previously reported 'disallowing of delegates' by the presumptive nominee rule change I reported on did seem to be a non-issue, and one story seems to be (and I'm merely guessing here) that many states supportive of Santorum issued a token delegate to the senator, I'm assuming, in slight protest of not having their voices heard.  Every awarding of delegates, with the exception of a few states (Minnesota for example) who pledged the majority of their delegates for Ron Paul, went decisively in Mitt Romney's favor - and this odd configuration of delegation left young Rick Santorum basically out of the Republican picture during this counting of vote's for the Republican nominee yesterday.  I'd have to assume that those who put a token Santorum delegate vote forth (relatively few), did so in the spirit of protest.

But the protestor's outside the RNC must surely, as of the afternoon of the second day of the RNC proper, be overwhelmed by the police presence.  No molotov cocktails or pipebombs... yet.

There is a lot less of the speculated tension surrounding the affairs in Tampa than was predicted - whether to do with the hurricane or the protesters.  The whole organization of the RNC is near a walking-on-water miracle.  Not to mention the massively traditional official entrance of the gorgeous Ann Romney into the political dialogue, which went off without a hitch nor hiccup.  The only gaffe I can recall after basically spending the entire day viewing this tremendous spectacle was Bob McConnell's "voice crack" as he went on to introduce his platform.  Sounded like a giddy schoolyard tween talking to someone about to extract their lunch money.

The whole affair begins again today, and I urge anyone to view it on c-span.org for free.

Thanks,

Brendan Hooker O'Connell