DNC 2012 Wrap-Up

All I remember from the second night was Bill Clinton, flying too close to the sun without even picking up a tan. Spoke for 45+ minutes, it turns out half of them off-script. It must have made the TV director crazy, because they cue their shot lists to the advance copy of the script they receive. Clinton didn’t even finish the script he ended up only riffing off of until 20 minutes before his speech.

Seriously. This color-coded transcript of what he wrote compared to what he said will blow your mind.

The man is a fucking machine. You could see the difference between Clinton and a normal human being again when Clinton and Obama left the stage together at the end of the night, and Clinton kept working the line after the president had already disappeared into the wings.

If you could package up crowd adulation and BBQ it by the pound, Bill Clinton would be the fattest man in America.

But his speech was more than a convention highlight, it was a career highlight. They’ll show clips from it when The History Channel does bios on him, or on political conventions in general. He sold Obama like he was a combination of George Washington, Gandhi and the T-1000.

I’m sure Obama will reciprocate when Hillary runs in 2016, eh?

And oh. My. God. Can you imagine the Bill Clinton speech at a Hillary nominating convention? The skies will open up and the angels will weep real tears.

There was more stuff the other night, but Wednesday was an extra-specially shitty day, and I only saw the rest of the evening’s events tangentially. If I was being paid for this gig, I would have to decline this week’s paycheck.

Tonight I watched it on C-SPAN and it was the way to go. For God’s sake, if I don’t know snarky Chris Mathews’ or little Sean Hannity’s opinions by now, I haven’t been paying attention. C-SPAN ran the whole thing with an unblinking eye, and a closed mouth.

The decision to have Gabby Giffords do the pledge of Allegiance was a beauty stroke. Kudos to Ms Giffords! Shit, I even forgive her for representing my least-favorite state in the world.

Then there was a lot of boilerplate convention demagoguery, but nicely done and warmly received. When footage of this year’s conventions is inevitably played side-by-side, the difference in enthusiasm and tone will be stark.

Then Joe Biden ambled out and nailed his speech like Pat O’Brien playing a priest giving a pep talk before the big game. “Bravery resides in every heart, and the time will come when it must be summoned.” I don’t know if his mother actually said that in real life, but that one single line is better than anything the RNC offered all last week.

And when a reference to Romney drew “boo”s from the crowd, Biden stopped his speech and said, “No. I don’t think he’s a bad guy.” Capra-esque!

Joe laughed, Joe cried, Joe got the crowd up on its feet… Biden’s speech was the speech of the night.

The president then delivered a good speech, but compared to the sheer passion and unhalting cadences of the Clinton and Biden speeches that preceded him, some of his orator shine wore off. Comparing it to Romney’s the week before would be damning it with faint praise.

I’m watching it again right now, and the rhetoric is soaring and the performance convincing. But I’m already in his political pocket, and it just didn’t feel special enough to compare with those that came before it this week.

And I frankly thought Ms Obama looked she was overselling it at times. In a lot of her reaction shots, she reminded me of a theater star who is trying to transition to films, but all her facial expressions are still designed to reach the back row.

Still, though, having watched most of both conventions, I have to give it to the Dems. No cascading-series-of-lies allegations have emerged to mar any of the spotlight speeches (kind of a big consideration this convention season) and the whole tone was just elevated from last week to this. I would describe the GOP crowd as determined, and the Democrats as excited.

The GOP has set its jaw and is marching off into the Russian winter under a commander it doesn’t really like or trust, and the Dems are linking arms, doing the Whoville dance and singing Kumbaya.

Somebody tell me again how there can possibly be Undecideds, unless they haven’t decided whether or not to vote at all.