Hillary’s Night
Well, Ryan wanted a thread, so let’s start one…
While we’re waiting for Hillary, Bill looks kind of old, doesn’t he? Of course, he is a little old now…but the presidency ages you, there is no doubt about that (so does major heart surgery, of course)…
UPDATE 9:32 p.m.: Schweitzer has a thankless task, with everyone waiting for Hillary, but he’s not a bad speaker…
UPDATE 9:48 p.m.: A raucous welcome for Hillary (these conventions feel more and more like a rock concert crossed with one of those infernal megachurches). She wasted no time in hitting the unity message – of course, that was expected, but I thought she might have more of an intro…
UPDATE 9:49 p.m.: Oh, cripes, here we go with the suffering again…holy cow, these Democrats are a depressing bunch…
UPDATE 9:51 p.m.: Jeez, enough with the campaign retrospective, Hillary, you’re supporting Barack now, remember? Although that ‘Sisterhood of the Travelling Pantsuits’ was pretty funny…
UPDATE 9:55 p.m.: Holy cow, but this speech is annoying the hell out of me…Hillary went on a litany of liberal buzzwords such as I have never seen in a 4-minute justification of her candidacy…one thing is indisputable: I am not now, nor can I ever be, a Democrat…
UPDATE 9:59 p.m.: Lots of big-oil bashing going on here…and universal health care…wonder how we’ll pay for that – funny I haven’t heard anything about the details…I”ll say one thing, Biden IS photogenic…
UPDATE 10:02 p.m.: Hillary at least has the decency to say McCain is a friend who has served with honor and courage…Hillary gets off a good line about the Twin Cities and the likeness between Bush and McCain…
UPDATE 10:08 p.m.: Well, a pretty effective speech…she built up some serious momentum a few times, but let it dissipate a little by excessive wordiness in the windups…but she definitely rallied the faithful, and probably largely put the Clinton/Obama split out of the headlines…it was much more impassioned and sincere than Michelle Obama’s speech last night, and definitely a big, big hit with the people in the hall…
Gotta rely on Decision08 for my election coverage — my daughter got the remote control first, so it’s Hannah Montana night.
Your daughter has the right idea…
Well, Clinton’s walking a fine line here. She needs to make it clear that her campaign meant something and her supporters mattered to her, but she has to come out full-throat for Obama. It’s hard task. I think she’s doing well.
As for the suffering business, I could easily ask why Republicans have to go on and on about the threats to our national security/way of life. I wouldn’t say they’re depressing, per se, but if I have to hear for four days how many people want to kill me, I’m not exactly going to be upbeat.
Here she goes. Lay the wood, girl. You were born to do it.
Well, that was pretty good. Best speech so far, for sure. Maybe not as combative as I’d like, but at least she took the gloves off for a few minutes. The Republicans aren’t going to hesitate to sock Obama in the jaw, and Democrats need to punch just as hard.
I just updated with my opinion – I agree, it was pretty good, and WAY, WAY better than last night…
Mark, to answer your question regarding Warner’s speech from the previous thread, it was quite heavy on the Bush attacks — similar to Schweitzer’s, but a little more on his own bio. He was the first college grad in his family, twice a failure in business (don’t the Dems usually mock Bush along similar lines?) before getting lucky with car phones that became cell phones . . . found the text.
Regarding the end of his speech, since when did Thomas Jefferson found the Democratic Party? I came across this factoid the other day, but I had always learned that Andrew Jackson founded it in the 1830′s. I guess a lot has changed in the last decade — even if it happened two centuries ago.
I think the most remarkable fact about the speech is that it actually achieved all the ridiculous things it was supposed to achieve. She was supposed to make a case for Obama, beat on McCain, acknowledge her supporters, and bring the party together. Coming in, that simply wasn’t a reasonable set of expectations for an actual human being. And she did it anyway.
Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party is essentially the party that Jackson transformed into the Democrats. Warner was generally right, I’d say.
Also, I’m with Rachel Maddow on Warner’s speech. He *sort of* attacked Bush, but mostly he just called him a President of the past – which is *literally* true! He spent a lot of time saying boring, Broderesque things about how it doesn’t matter if a good idea has a D or an R next to it. If it doesn’t matter, Mark, why are you delivering the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention? Just shameful.
I’m not delivering any speech anywhere, and I’ll thank you to…oh, okay. Another Mark…
Ha! I’d pay good money to see you delivering the Democratic keynote! (Not that good, though. Don’t get your horses up.)
The big problem with this convention so far, in my view, is that there has been very little meat, even by convention standards…and I’m not talking red meat, though I know you’d like some more of that, Ryan. I keep hearing “Universal Health Care” and “Renewable Energy” and “Unions Good” and “Big Oil Bad” and “Leave Iraq With Dignity”…but I’ll be damned if I can remember one serious policy proposal. I swear to you…not one…Obama MUST present a case for himself that goes beyond platitudes and the eternal Democratic theme of suffering…
And I’m not big on speeches, though I’ve given a few with very great reluctance…you know all those stories about people being more afraid of public speaking than of death? I’m not quite there, but I’m close…very nerve-wracking…though I suspect that if I ever got to speak in public about something I really cared about, like Frank Sinatra, I would have to be dragged from the stage kicking and screaming…
It’s hard to talk seriously about concrete policy proposals. I mean, should Obama get on stage and talk about health care mandates? His actual proposals are things like “direct more NSF funding to renewable energy projects”, which I think is about as specific as it gets. And they’ve certainly all been on about this whole $1000 tax cut business, which is a specifically stupid idea. He has an Iraq timetable, so I guess he can say “April 2010″ a few times. But the point is it’s hard to be all that specific without being really really boring. Of course he’s not going to be able to go into exactly where he wants to set the emissions cap for a cap-and-trade system. No one actually cares about specifics like that.
Hmm… okay. That said, he could be fairly specific about torture and judges, both of which are things I’m surprised no one has really spent much time talking about so far.
Too many specifics, and yes, people will nod out in boredom…but the Thursday speech cannot be entirely devoid of specifics. It’s expected of the candidate that he actually lay out a policy agenda, even if he doesn’t feel in all the dots…
Also, I know you didn’t see Bob Casey, but he had one of the lines of the night: “McCain likes to call himself a maverick, but he votes with George W. Bush more than 90% of the time. That’s not a maverick; that’s a *sidekick*.” And he said “sidekick” with this sneer that was absolutely priceless. I’ve always been fond of Casey; the 2006 Senate class is an especially good one in my eyes (McCaskill, Webb, and Tester are three of my favorite Senators). But I never really paid attention to his oratorical skills. He’s not bad.
And I seriously think April 2010 is dead. The Iraqi government is pushing very hard for a real timeline, but even THEY are pushing for the end of 2011…
I heard about the Casey line, though I did not see it delivered…
Apparently Strickland said, “George Bush started on third base, and then he stole second.” I didn’t hear that, but it’s pretty hilarious.
Here’s Andrew Sullivan: “But watching this convention so far, I don’t get the feeling that these people have lived through the same eight years as I have.” That’s my position in a nutshell. Where’s the outrage?
I thought Warner’s speech was fairly silly — for the reason you pointed out, Ryan — and it always struck me as odd when Obama would talk about uniting the country and non-partisan/post-partisan rhetoric and then go into a litany of Democratic Talking Points or rail against the GOP or Bush; it’s no different when Warner does it. It was also strange that he was advocating moving into the future when the Democratic platform (minus global warmism, though result of that is extensive government regulation of the economy) is mostly ripped from the 1960′s and 70′s.
The continued insistence upon ending the war in Iraq is another issue on which they’re stuck in the past. Why don’t we end World War II while we’re at it?
You have got to be kidding me? He is a robot who pauses to access his recorded tape files. Casey is one of the most uninspiring speakers of all times.
Finally! We’ve found one of the 9%!
Mark, I assume you’re going to get just as indignant when the RNC spends their whole time bashing Obama, right? I assume you’re going to criticize your own party if they don’t present enough policy specifics, right? It couldn’t be that it’s only bad if the Democrats do it, could it?
Um, I didn’t get indignant about the DNC spending their whole time bashing McCain…I made a few observations, which is not the same. I could blog about the weather, I suppose, but the Democratic convention seems more relevant at this time.
And yes, if the Republicans spend their whole time bashing Obama and not going into any policy specifics, I will be critical…
Fargus,
I don’t see where Mark has been indignant about the DNC bashing McCain, so your question seems rather odd.
I, for one, will criticize the RNC speeches if there are no specifics. However, let’s not kid ourselves. This whole race is about Obama. It’s not about John McCain. It’s not about who has the best energy plan. It’s not about the war on terror. It’s not about the economy. I might wish it were about those things, but it isn’t.
It’s about whether or not Obama can convince enough of the voters that he is worthy of their vote. We know his messages resonates with voters. The voters definitely want “change”. And, frankly, I’m thrilled to hear a Democrat talk about “hope” for once. I usually find their speeches very depressing. But, the message hasn’t been enough. Voters still aren’t sure about this man, for whatever reason. Maybe they’re racists. Maybe it’s his lack of experience. Maybe it’s lack of specifics. Maybe it’s that this is the first Democratic ticket in 44 years with no military experience. Maybe it’s because he “has a funny name”. Maybe it’s because he has brown eyes and big ears. I don’t know.
This is why the comparisons with 1980 are apt. Reagan faced similar issues. People really responded to his message of change. But he did give specifics, and he had a bit more experience than Obama, despite being “just an actor”. But they weren’t sure about him. In the end, in the last weeks before the election undecideds broke heavily for Reagan and he won in a landslide.
As long as the number of undecideds remain high, and they’re currently around 10% according to RCP, the race is still about Obama.
And as long as it’s about Obama, Republicans must attack. It’s not the job of Republicans this cycle to convince people to vote for McCain. It’s their job to convince people not to vote for Obama.
I should clarify, btw. I don’t think that 10% undecideds is very high by historical standards. I don’t know what the numbers were in 2004 and 2000 at this point, but I imagine that in 2000 at least it was somewhat higher. But, if the race is a 2 point one, and 10% are undecided, 10% is huge. If you believe that Obama will get 2/3 of the undecideds, then the race moves from a 2 pt race to 5 1/2 points or so. Which would be pretty big.
FWIW, I don’t really approve of the “vote for me because I’m not X” campaigns, and they don’t generally work out well either. Ask John Kerry.
“sisterhood of the pantsuits” – cool.
She did a nice job – which was totally expected – and did what she was supposed to do, also totally expected by me. The talking heads had an interest in spinning the would she or wouldn’t she toe the party line and support the party’s choice, but i never had any doubt…
Here’s another take on the convention from Chris Bowers at Open Left. I agree with Chris on more things than you might think, and he makes some good points in this post.
Mark,
Apologies. I don’t know how I misread your post that badly, and I’m sorry I mischaracterized it. I guess the point about details still stands, and I appreciate that you and Chris have both said that you’ll be critical of the Republicans if they don’t offer any details. But as a practical matter, conventions are about rallying people to the cause, exciting the base, etc. I don’t particularly blame anyone from either party for going light on specifics at a convention when their goal is simply to get people fired up.
I agree. Party platforms are for specifics, conventions are for vision and messaging designed to rally the troops and convert the uncertain.
It will be interesting to see if the Republican speakers can match the level of oratory next week. I’m hard pressed to think of a Republican (since Reagan) who gives a really good stump speech.
It will also be interesting to see if the Democrats can crash the GOP convention in the same manner that the Republicans are crashing this week’s party: setting up a Denver office, getting air time for the attack dogs, creating ads designed to split the other party (will the Dems run ads trying to split McCain from the social conservatives?). In years past, each party traditionally was quiet during the other party’s convention. No longer.
It will and I expect they will – turnabout is fair play.
I too doubt we will hear any great oratory next week (I won’t be watching either way), it is one of the least common traits among the GOP leadership. But, that fact hasn’t prevented them from winning the white house… Reagan was elected less because of his oratory and more because of his vision – to the extent they are separate – and the contrast with Jimmy Carter’s “malaise”.
Well, both Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger were very, very good indeed at the 2004 convention. Rudy gave one of the most remarkable convention speeches I have ever seen – it was conversational, intimate, and not in the slightest bombastic, and yet everyone was hanging on his every word. I don’t know why we don’t see that Rudy more often, and I doubt we’ll see him this time, but I wish we would. Arnold, on the other hand, gave a rollicking celebration of American greatness from the perspective of an immigrant who lived the American dream as few have…and it was one of the most ‘feel-good’ speeches I can every recall.
Fargus, no need for apologies, it’s cool…I don’t quite agree with you guys, though, on substance. It’s one thing if all the other speakers are light on substance…but a candidate HAS to have some. Obama must, must, must lay out an agenda. Talking about change is not going to do the trick. We KNOW he is the ‘change’ candidate – now he must define what change is. He can do so in broad terms, and leave the wonkery aside, but the agenda must be there…
You act as though he doesn’t have any proposals. His website is full of them. You know this, I’m sure.
What about McCain’s agenda? Not being a “celebrity”? Does that count?
Fargus, of course his website is full of proposals…and a small fraction of the viewing audience tonight might actually see them at some point.
This is not about his website, for crying out loud – it’s about the biggest audience he’ll have (with the possible exception of the debates) between now and the election…