Dispatches from the Democratic Convention

In an effort to be fair and balanced I’m forced to also cover the Democratic National Convention.  I’m not sure if packing this event over three days instead of four is a good or bad idea. We’ll see how it goes.  I’m coming to you live and direct from my chaise and watching CNN.  Again all 6,000 CNN contributors and pundits are there and painfully giving everything “context”.  Wolf Blitzer is again, weirdly I might add, tossing out lines from songs in his comments.  Why is he the music guy of CNN political reporters?

Our CNN friends are pushing the important question, “Are you better off…”  How do you answer that question?    It’s a loaded question with no good answer.  How do you measure if you’re better off?  A better job?  You’re earning more money than four years ago? Given how bad the economy was four years ago I’m glad to still have a job.  So I’m pretty happy to be in the same place I was four years ago.  Also, the question makes it seem like the president is soley responsible for economic growth.  It’s too simplistic a question for our political system.

A great Ted Kennedy video kicks off prime time coverage.  They list many of the bills that Kennedy sponsored.  Ted was pretty effective but then again he was in the Senate for an eternity so you’d hope he was doing something. The funniest part were the clips of young Willard Mitt debating Teddy K.  Ted beat him down pretty handily.  Obama’s team not so subtly used to the video to build the case that Mitt is a flip flopper with no core.  

Whoa!  Where did they find Michael Dukakis?  I thought the DNC banished him to the political hinterlands for the beating he took from Reagan.  Dude went hard with his criticisms of Willard Mitt.  Something about Dukakis makes me ignore everything he says.  Maybe it’s the image of him riding in a tank that pops in my head every time he opens his mouth or his inability to hold his head up straight.  The Dukakis period was a bad time for Democrats.  

The theme of the convention is Forward and thus far everybody has been required to include this word in their speeches.  In every sentence.  Yes I’m talking about you Gov. O’Malley.

Now up is with real life example of the benefits of the health care act from is the Lihn family.  I don’t care about your politics if you don’t see how this law has helped people then I can’t take you seriously.  That bill saved a little girl’s life.  Powerful stuff.  Same with Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth’s speech.   I just realized at the Republican convention they barely mentioned the US armed forces.  That really surprises me.  They’re normally very in your face about the military.  I don’t recollect one mention of our men and woman serving around the world.  Weird.

Strange riff on Mitt firing reindeer and outsourcing elves by former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.  I’m glad my kids are sleep because right now they’d really hate Mitt.  I also wish Strickland didn’t yell through his whole speech or at least the snippet CNN decided to show us.

CNN provides us with a pointless stand up interview with Alfre Woodard, Tim Daly and John Leguizamo.  Look!  People from Hollywood support Obama!  Big surprise.  At least they conversant on the issues.

Ari Gold’s older brother, Rahm Emanuel,  is having a hard time speaking without cursing.  The should let Rahm cut loose.  The guy needs to curse to speak effectively. He’s clearly reading a speech somebody else wrote.

An aside:  Man, Al Gore tongued Tipper down. He was really excited to get that nomination.  Now they’re divorced.  Lesson?  Don’t run such a poor, misguided campaign that you lose to a guy like George W Bush.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick gave a good speech that got crowd hyped.  I have a bone to pick with him though.  Deval, Democrats will never grow a backbone.  It’s not in their DNA.  Democrats always fold when times get tough.

San Antonio’ Mayor Julian Castro’s keynote speech started out to a mostly tepid response.  The crowd was not frothing at the mouth like they were for Patrick and O’Malley’s speeches.  Maybe it’s the faux bass in his voice but his speech didn’t move me.  Everybody else is calling it a home run.  I thought it was decent.  It must suck to be in the same profession as your twin brother and he’s declared a rising star and you’re just his twin.  Joaquin Castro must want to switch places when nobody’s looking.  Of course if the speech didn’t go over well Julian Castro could always say it was his twin up there.

Time for more wifely speechifying hijinks. I would be more interested in her speech if Michelle Obama announced she couldn’t support her husband and she was voting for Willard Mitt.  She killed it though.  Michelle did a good job connecting Obama to families and the big important issues in a human way.  Her speech was more political than I was expecting.

Overall a good night for the Dems.  Though they were almost as flexible with the truth as Republicans were.  It was the usual bad night for CNN.  They just talk a lot without saying much.  The big differences in the conventions so far: the speakers are actually talking about Obama, the crowd is alive, and everybody is on message.

Tagged Barack Obama, Democrats, DNC2012