DNC Convention Wrap-up, Night One

Very smooth-running night. Jimmy Carter beamed-in testimonial and Ted Kennedy video eulogy nicely done, the latter without being overwrought.

Right off the bat, the difference in tone from the RNC convention is palpable. To be fair, the GOP are the challengers in this contest, so it’s expected that they would come out of the gate swinging. But they had to spend most of their three nights repeating endless stories about their candidate’s individual, humbly unheralded acts of awesome wonderfulness, in a desperate attempt to convince America that their unlikable candidate was indeed likable.

Their job wasn’t to Etch-A-Sketch their candidate, it was to Etch-A-Sketch America’s brain. And it only worked to the extent that unconverted people watched the unconvincing spectacle last week and came away convinced Mittens is a hail-and-well-met type of fellow after all, which I’m not convinced happened at all.

The Dems, I think, will limit their cult-of-the-candidate pitch to tonight, because America already believes that Obama, while being the coolest cat in the room, still gives a damn about the help. I don’t think anyone believes Mitt Romney tips 20% unless the cameras are rolling. (But it all evens out in the end, because he does tip his super-rich church 10% a year faithfully.)

Plus, Obama has a record that he wants to talk about, not obfuscate, so it gives the second two nights something to do. To be fair and balanced, Obama also has a record he doesn’t much want to talk about, but my point is; everything is off the table with Romney and his surrogates—I won’t bore you with the list—but Obama is not afraid to spend two nights talking about the accomplishments that make him look good… and that will take two full nights.

I’m pretty sure I don’t remember the RNC spending much time at all on Bain Capital, or RomneyCare in Massachussetts. Frankly, besides his Olympics triumph, Romney’s CV felt a little light to fill a whole convention, let alone the Oval Office.

Back to tonight; speeches mostly boilerplate political yada yada, but the speakers seem lit-up, optimistic. Without paying close attention to the content, most of these speakers I want to like. Most of last week’s speakers were so self-serving and/or vague as to who they were supporting, it was hard to feel any personal connection to them since none of them seemed to want to be there (except for the Condi/Ryan night. They crushed their respective speeches, although Ryan’s was marred afterwards when it was revealed exactly how big a pack of lies it was).

Then Mrs. Obama came up and killed it. I was actually afraid she might be overselling it, but the crowd ate it up, and so did the talking heads, even over on Fox. Both Chris Wallace and Chuck Krauthammer gushed over her in the immediate aftermath, before flogging the inevitable, predictable big government storyline.


Wallace said (paraphrased), “I read it [the speech] beforehand and it seemed like a good speech, but to hear it delivered—wow!” Krauthammer also excreted unwilling words of praise for the First Lady before moving on to the exact same language about big government everyone else on Fox was repeating. (Then I switched over to another channel, msnbc, and their fawning adulation was harder to take than Fox’s rote outrage.)


The crowd reaction for Michelle Obama’s opening night speech tonight was livelier and more spontaneous than the best-received speech last week. Bill Clinton should leave them with a collective 48-hour erection tomorrow; I’m feeling tumescent already.