After day 3 of the DNC

Well day 3 of the DNC saw John McCain on a skewer, although a very polite skewer. Both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden expressed their respect for McCain, the work that he has done in the past by reaching across the aisle and his heroic military record. Then they began to berate him on a whole host of issues. I liked it. Not from the perspective that they wanted me to like it… but I liked it. They drew a clear contrast. They were dishonest at times and lacked several little things like evidence and facts, and willfully ignoring important issues, but they definitely drew a contrast.

Bill Clinton was quite his old self last night. He had the same old hand gestures, he was composed and collected. I did notice that biting his lip had been replaced by a tongue roll in the cheek. Not sure what that’s about. But he was smooth, polished, and put on a truly Clintonesque performance. A much better show than he had been putting on for the last year campaigning for his wife. In the end though it was all about Bill and he was loving every minute of it. He constantly made references back to his own administration and how great things were in the 90s. The funny thing is, this speech was suppose to be about national security, but it included easily as much or more about the economy as it did national security. Unlike Hillary, Bill’s speech was clear, easy to listen to and although it contained copious references back to his administration, he very definitely endorsed Obama… on stage. His comments off stage were a little different. One MSNBC commentator was subjected to a deafening round of boos along with a hostile Chris Matthews for stating that the Clinton’s might have endorsed Obama, but they would be voting for McCain. It was pretty classic.

Joe Biden is not the public speaker that Bill Clinton is. His speech was painful. He tripped over his words several times. His statements were aimed at getting the crowd riled up without regard to legitimacy or truth. I’ve listened to several of these speeches now and I got more irritated with Biden’s speech than I have any of them.

But, the big show is tonight. Invesco Field is decorated up like the Parthenon from the pictures. I have no idea how that plays into this whole shindig, but I guess we’ll see tonight. I’m sure it will be very well delivered and very well received by the crowd. I’m sure it will be very touchy-feely and very sentimental. I’m not sure about any kind of substance, but we’ll see.

Will it be enough to stop the trend to McCain?

Will the Dems get any kind of bump from their convention?

Will McCain’s VP announcement(Friday or maybe even tonight) steal the thunder?

Are the Reps in a better position with their convention being one week after the Dems?

We shall see.

After day 2 of the DNC

Well, I did not catch the speech last night as it was in action, but I caught the late version, or what I could of it. I finally dozed off about 11 and couldn’t take anymore. I have to say that I appreciate the fact that Obama beat Hillary in the primaries simply because she is a difficult speaker to listen to. She is loud and tends to get stuck in an obnoxious, almost shout that gets very old after a very short period of time. In any case, the speeches from Michelle Obama and from Hillary could not have been more different. Michelle was poised and her speech flowed, it made sense, it was easy to listen to and it was even easy to read. Hillary’s was one tag line after another, some biting at Bush, others at McCain, but most of them patting herself on the back.

The stated purpose of the speech, from several Dem strategists was for Hillary to help unify the party and repair the rift that was created through a long and bitter primary. I think she could have done that, or at least made a lot of progress in that direction, but I don’t think she wanted to, and I don’t think the Obama’s really thought she would.

To me the story of the night, as I watched Hillary speak, was the look on Michelle Obama’s face. It was a mixture of angst, fear, bitterness, and if looks could kill, then at some point during the speech last night I think Hillary would have been burned by the fire coming out of her eyes.

Wow. It was not pretty.

I didn’t get to hear what any of the pundits were saying about the speech, hopefully I will catch some of that today. I would have to say that my impression is that it was a failure. The whole thing sounded more like a rallying cry to Clinton and what she had done than a moving speech to try and restore the party. Of course, I really don’t know if Hillary could deliver that speech. I think Pres Clinton could, if he wanted to, but from all of the reports that have been coming out, I don’t think that’s the foremost thing on his mind.

It was a very interesting development for Obama to let the Clinton’s have two nights at the convention. I’m not sure what he was thinking here. He would have had a better chance at unity if he would have made Hillary is VP choice. Of course, then he would be watching his back and hesitantly sipping his coffee for the next four years, but he would have had a better shot at the election. Either that or he is thinking that his speech at Invesco Field is going to be SO moving and SO inspiring that the rest of the convention will be forgotten and everyone will look back on all of the other pathetic speeches and be glad that they have elected this eloquent speaker, their nominee for president.

For his sake I hope there aren’t any teleprompter issues. It could bring the whole thing down in flames. Hmmm… that could be very interesting. :)

After day 1 of the DNC

Mondays are my days off and Brandi had already put the baby down and headed off to the gym, so I sat down on the couch and watch the Dem Convention last night. Unfortunately I only caught the last half of Michelle Obama’s speech, along with the analysis by the various talking heads. I like to switch between networks to see how different anchors react to different things. If you pay attention and see how different people do it, you can definitely see the slant that some networks or reporters take.

Some observations here.

If you are watching Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, then you are definitely seeing the most liberally biased presentation of the convention. Which is fine, if that’s your preference. At the end of the speech when the Obama girls came on stage and Barrack came up on the screen, it almost sounded like Olbermann was getting choked up and of course just fawning all over the whole scene. Quite a contrast to the comments from the Ragin’ Cajun James Carville on CNN who had some blistering statements about the convention so far.

Over on Fox news you definitely got the other side. They had Juan Williams saying some positive things about the speech and Britt Hume seemed fairly impartial (always a class act in my opinion). Chris Wallace said that the whole day was a missed opportunity and a waste, which was backed up by several panel members. Fred Barnes gave a good sense commentary on the evening and made some kind remarks even though he is clearly more conservative in his views. Karl Rove was unusually non-sensical and went on for a couple of minutes ragging on M.O. for making points and statements that could have been made by other people. Britt tried to bring him back, but I think at that point it was a lost cause.

Personally, having seen what I saw and read through the transcripts, I think Michelle did what she needed to do. She is obviously a very intelligent and articulate lady who loves her husband and her kids. The whole point of her giving the speech was to make sure that she looked like a normal patriotic American from humble beginnings (after some revealing comments earlier in the primaries). She also wanted to make sure that Barrack came across as a normal father/husband/brother-in-law who believes in this country and in the American dream; obviously an effort to confront the “celebrity” commercials from the McCain camp (which are GENIUS, politically speaking). In the meantime she threw in several references to her faith, some positive statements about military families, and a brief overview of her husband’s agenda concerning Iraq, the economy, and healthcare. The first night was an important night to try and rally the liberal troops and try and gently recreate Obama’s image. Mission accomplished.

I don’t think that we are going to see more of the same tonight. In fact, I am counting on a lot of interesting statements tonight. Hillary Clinton is speaking. Don’t tune into MSNBC if you want to see the rabid Hillary fans that will be drug out of the arena foaming at the mouth. Go to FNC for that. :)

Free tickets! *

Do you ever pay attention to those little * that appear on all kinds of "free" things. It's kind of like the old saying, "there is no such thing as a free lunch." Very true.

Well, it turns out there is no such thing as a free ticket to the Obama acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver. After being told that they would receive the free tickets, they were told that they would only receive them after they volunteered for the campaign.

Normally in business we call this the Bait and Switch technique.

Of course, maybe B.O. just 'moderated his position' on the word 'free'.

It's a good thing B.O. is a 'different' kind of politician, otherwise this would seem like a cheesy political trick.

So... is the campaign calling up Berliners and asking them to come in and volunteer? After all, they already had their 'free' speech.

The DNC Kicked Off Their Run Up to the Convention

The convention may be two months away, but yesterday Denver kicked off the series of festivities leading up to the convention and to get things going they had a singing of the national anthem. Check it out. What's that you say, you've never heard that song before? Well, evidently the artist/activist that was chosen to sing the song decided to use the tune from the Star Spangled Banner, but sang the words to what is known as the "Black National Anthem".

Gotta love the activist Dems appealing to main stream America.