Little coming out of the two late-summer political conventions staged in advance of the presidential election resonates with a guy like me. I’m a union worker who opposes hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from deep below the ground. I oppose US government deployment of remote-controlled drones to kill the enemy. I’m upset about President Obama’s sharp escalation of war in Afghanistan where a hundred-thousand American men and women were stationed under his watch.  I believe true health care reform only comes with implementation of universally accessible coverage administered by a single non-profit entity. It ticks me off that Bradley Manning is still in a cage and I want a leader who admits free trade agreements shut down factories and the decent jobs attached to them.

None of the above is discussed by those addressing the conventions.

I’m not enthused about either of the two major candidates running for president. If I had kids, I’d be pissed and worried about where we’re headed as a country. As it is, I consume politics now with the understanding I’ll always be left of the left enough to feel left out. But that’s ok. I still watch the conventions because they open a window on the choice before us in a way stump speeches don’t. It’s part theatre. It’s part farce. The conduct of delegates is freakish at times and one can absorb it and react to it however one chooses beyond casting the single vote when the time comes. I like to laugh at most of it rather than cry about it.

Major television networks have quit on the conventions for all but an hour or so of the final three nights. They say they’re scripted. They are. At least they were until Mitt Romney got starry-eyed and slotted in Clint Eastwood without pre-screening the coherence of the 82-year-old actor’s words or current mental state.

I think Romney is tormented somewhat by the pull of the tea party. He picked a skilled politician to fill out the bottom half of the ticket. His choice is viewed favorably among the existing heart and soul of the Grand Old Party but Paul Ryan’s documented effort to dismantle Medicare will doom Romney in Florida. How Florida goes is how this election goes and Obama got a gift with the selection of Ryan.

The congressman from Janesville, WI set off alarms at PolitiFact while accepting his nomination last Wednesday. A lying politician is nothing new of course, but Ryan’s convention speech was unsettling for its utter recklessness with facts. He lied up and down that speech when all he really needed to do was talk about the absence of an economic pulse in battleground states since Obama took office.

“The recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight,” said Ryan. Yes. That’s fair. That’s a good line. And that’s what the Romney campaign should say ’til it turns pink. Instead, Ryan used his big shot on the national stage to set off a stink-bomb of lies that were so egregious, they were laughed at by analysts in real time. Blaming the closure of a Janesville auto plant on Obama when it had been chained shut before he took office sounded good if you’re sitting at home unaware of the background of that anecdote. But Ryan lied and then he lied some more on the subject of Medicare.

Ryan says the health care reform measure objectively viewed as the cornerstone accomplishment of Obama’s first term “raids” or “funnels out” $716 billion from Medicare “at the expense of the elderly.” The health care legislation (adopted by a GOP-controlled US House and upheld by US Supremes tilted conservatively) does in fact apply a $716 billion savings assumption to growth in Medicare spending over a ten-year period but does so using a variety of mechanisms targeting administrative bloat. It’s hardly a “raid” on Medicare‘s recipients.

Ryan’s tact on this subject is vile given his personal efforts in Congress to address Medicare’s deficit crisis by shifting older Americans into a down-the-road voucher system that would expand the existing for-profit health care model that’s proven to be so badly broken and costly for the rest of the population.

“Our rights come from nature and God and not from government!” said Ryan as a nearly all-white crowd cheered wildly.

The next night Romney mocked global warming about an hour after Clint spoke to an empty chair.

This week, the Democrats are meeting in a state with a law that makes it near-impossible for workers to unionize.

It all would be more interesting in terms of delegate math had Romney found a running mate who appealed to the party base without killing the ticket’s chances in Florida. I’m not sure who that guy is. Chris Christie maybe?

As it is, you can circle October 11 on your calendar. That’s when Joe Biden and Paul Ryan meet at a small college auditorium in Danville, KY for the one and only 2012 Vice-presidential debate. The networks won’t abbreviate their coverage for that event, that’s for sure.