Clint Eastwood

His “speech” at the Republican National Convention has received mixed reviews, but it has spawned a couple of Twitter memes already AND knocked President Obama’s campaign off message for a bit. Even Obama’s Twitter picture with the caption “This chair is taken.” has been parodied.

The criticism of Eastwood’s speech was that it was rambling and a sign that he’s lost his wits or something.

I think those critics, professional and amateur, are missing the point here. Clint Eastwood did not give a speech, he put on a performance. He is an accomplished actor with about 60 years of experience. Mostly known for westerns early in his career, he’s branched out into other genres and in addition to acting, he’s written, directed, and produced movies. He’s not a lightweight, he is a professional.

He’s well enough established in Hollywood that he doesn’t have to “play the game” to get good roles or directing jobs. The liberal Hollywood big wigs will line up to have him direct or act in their movies and if they don’t, he doesn’t give a rat’s ass.

What he did the other night was play a role, a character whose lines were intended to make a point. His rambling delivery was part of the act, even though there is one story that his Teleprompter broke and he had to ad lib much of his performance. True or not, he stayed in character and delivered a pretty effective performance.

Now, you may not agree with him, or Mitt Romney, and you may support the President. That’s your business. Either way, his performance was effective and certainly created a lot of “buzz”. It also set a tenor for the rest of the election campaign. While Mitt Romney will continue to hammer the economy as the #1 issues, there will be a sub text of Obama as not up to the task which will divert a lot of energy from the Obama campaign.

Will it work? We’ll find out on November 6.