I’m a registered Republican and have been for most of my adult life. By the same token, I’m a Maryland Republican, which loosely translates into belonging to a fairly moderate strain of the party. I suspect that’s largely because the Democrats who perennially control the state house and governor’s mansion tend to subscribe to the west coast definition of what it means to be liberal. The result is a Republican party that tends, largely, to be pretty middle of the road when compared to our red state brethren in someplace like Wyoming. Sure, we have plenty of our own wackadoodle right wing nut jobs too, but they don’t tend to grow quite as thickly around here as they do in other parts of the country.

Usually I don’t think too much about the labels of politics, if only because I don’t find myself fitting nicely into any of them… but with tonight’s kickoff of the Democratic National Convention, I find myself glaring at the television and trying not to give in to the temptation to yell in its direction. To be honest, nominating conventions aren’t for guys like me. We made up our minds back during the primaries. Conventions are about rallying the faithful ahead of the long, hard slog to November. Well, that and maybe, just maybe reaching one or two percent of the undecided voters out there occupying the middle ground.

The only thing I’m going to gain from watching this convention is (re)learning that in a head-to-head comparison, I disagree more with the Democrats than I disagree with the Republicans. I should probably go ahead and switch over to a rerun of Big Bang Theory so my blood pressure doesn’t shoot into the stratosphere at some point this evening.