Clint Eastwood on the empty chair: ‘I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle’

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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The Carmel Pine has scored a post-convention interview with Clint Eastwood. Here are a few key excerpts I found of interest …

Eastwood believes he accomplished his goal — which was to reach regular Americans:

“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”

And what about the improv act? It seems Eastwood insisted Team Romney not try to script him:

They vett most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say,’” Eastwood recalled.

… He also hates using a teleprompter, so it was settled in his mind that when he spoke to the 10,000 people in the convention hall, and the millions more watching on television, he would do it extemporaneously.

“It was supposed to be a contrast with all the scripted speeches, because I’m Joe Citizen,” Eastwood said. “I’m a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.”

It seems the chair idea was a last-minute decision:

“There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down,” Eastwood said. “When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.”

He asked a stagehand to take it out to the lectern while he was being announced.

“The guy said, ‘You mean you want it at the podium?’ and I said, ‘No, just put it right there next to it.’”

What about the backlash?

Eastwood said people, including reporters, who were shocked by his remarks “are obviously on the left,” and he maintained that, while many Americans didn’t like the way he handled his convention appearance, millions more have something else on their minds.

“A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama,” Eastwood said.

(Emphasis mine.)

 

 

 

Read the whole thing here.

Matt K. Lewis