Quick Headlines - Democratic Convention (2008)
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr., Starts Slogan Chant Without Intending To
Denver, CO - Bob Casey, Jr., senator of Pennsylvania wrote his speech quickly and it showed.
“I realized as I was speaking that I had some embarrassing repetition in (the speech),” admitted Casey. “I said, ‘We can’t have four more years of the same Bush-style policies; just four more months’ when I spoke about the prospect of (Senator John) McCain becoming president. I got some great cheers on that, and was pretty excited. But, then, I said, ‘We can’t have four more years of tax cuts for the wealthy while the least of us suffer; just four more months.’ When I realized I said the four more months thing again, my stomach dropped. How amateur is that to use the same phrase two sentences in a row? Then the crowd starting chanting, ‘Four more months!’ They were making fun of me!”
As a matter of fact, Casey said the same phrase in the next three sentences straight, each time, the crowd repeating it back at him. It soon came to the point that the crowd repeated “Four more months” to such volume and insistence that Casey found it difficult to continue to the next passages in his speech. Frustrated by the oversight of having included the same phrase in his speech five sentences in a row and of being mocked, Casey seemed to hit a turning point.
“Shut up! Shut the f*** up!” Casey screamed at one point, storming to the front of the stage and swinging his Pennsylvania-born fists at several in the front row.
Those Named Big Business Upset By Building Negative Connotation
Spirit, NH - “I get nothing but grief for my name,” said Big Business MacCready, 24-year-old accountant in this small town in New Hampshire. “And the Democratic Convention isn’t helping matters. If I was to believe those politicians, apparently big business is the core of all evil in this country.”
MacCready was given the contentious first name when his mother, who wanted to name him Shamus, and his father, who thought Ryan had a nice ring to it, couldn’t agree. After days of arguing, they finally settled on a name they both could live with even if they didn’t love it.
“And, at the time, in the early-80s, Big Business wasn’t such a pariah,” sighed MacCready as he walked to the Starbucks counter to pick up his latte, enjoying the slight respite of the barista mispronouncing his name as “Bij Busyness.”
