Gop, Republican National Convention | featured news

Fox News Channel’s 10 to 11-ish p.m. coverage of Clint Eastwood’s debate with a chair — followed by Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech — was the country’s second-most-watched TV program last week. Romney, Eastwood & Chair finished the week trailing only Howard Stern & “America’s Got Talent” on NBC; the telecasts averaged 9.1 million viewers and 9.9 million viewers, respectively.

Women voters care most about the economy and jobs. But with a critical caveat: nine out of 10 women say that a candidate must "understand women." To do that requires an acknowledgment of two things: that women's economic security -- by almost every measure -- still lags behind that of male counterparts and that their economic security is inextricably tied to their ability to control their health, including reproductive choices. And on those points, no illusions and tradesman's tricks can obscure the fact that the GOP agenda fails the test.

The Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. received mediocre television ratings — and the polling data so far suggests that it may produce only a modest bounce in the polls for Mitt Romney.

Clint Eastwood earned plenty of bad reviews for his latest performance: a bizarre, rambling endorsement of Mitt Romney. "Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic," tweeted film critic Roger Ebert as Eastwood ad-libbed Thursday night to an audience of millions - and one empty chair - on stage at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. "He didn't need to do this to himself. It's unworthy of him."

Ann Romney says she appreciates the support Clint Eastwood gave her husband's presidential bid, even if the actor's bizarre monologue at the GOP convention isn't earning rave reviews.

When Mitt Romney was searching for a ticket mate, Republicans pleaded: Don't pick another Sarah Palin. So it may come as a surprise that, in at least one important way, he ended up doing precisely that with Paul D. Ryan. Like Palin four years ago, the Wisconsin congressman has captured the heart of the Republican convention. The thunderous response to his speech Wednesday night was the latest indication.

Paul Ryan's vice presidential acceptance speech ran into a lot of trouble with fact-checkers and journalists. It seemed like some reporters' heads were going to explode on Twitter as Ryan spoke. For instance, he blasted President Obama for not doing more to keep a GM plant in his hometown open. The problem was that the plant closed before Obama took office. He also criticized Obama for rejecting recommendations from a debt commission that he himself sat on, and whose findings he also rejected.

Ann Romney and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proved to be an attractive TV draw at the Republican National Convention. An estimated 22.3 million people tuned in to watch the first full night of the GOP convention last night, according to Nielsen, the ratings company. That was an increase of 800,000 viewers on the same night of coverage four years ago in St. Paul, Nielsen said.

Yahoo! News fired Washington bureau chief David Chalian after he was caught saying Mitt Romney and his wife are “happy to have a party with black people drowning.” POLITICO reported Chalian was caught making the remarks inadvertently on mic during an ABC News/Yahoo! News webcast. Chalian said, "They're not concerned at all. They're happy to have a party with black people drowning."

Chris Christie is taking heat for something he said about 16 minutes into his keynote address on Tuesday. What exactly did he say? The name "Mitt Romney." The fact that it took so long for the New Jersey governor to actually mention Romney's name reduced the Republican presidential nominee to "almost an afterthought" in the GOP convention's keynote address, writes Howard Kurtz in The Daily Beast.