Tag: Barack Obama

What will we think tomorrow?

Tonight, at least, it seems clear that Barack Obama delivered a terrific speech. How good? Not to be a weasel, but I think it’s too soon to say. His decision to be his own attack dog was an interesting one. Was it smart?

There was lots of soaring rhetoric, of course, as well as more specifics than we’re accustomed to hearing from him. He almost certainly got what he needed this week, despite the pundits’ obsession with the Clintons.

I’ll be scanning media reaction early tomorrow morning for the Guardian. Also tomorrow, I’ll be on “Beat the Press” on WGBH-TV (Channel 2) at 7 p.m. for its convention wrap-up.

Go-go Gore

Remember when people used to parody Al Gore by talking … very … slowly? He just rushed through his brief speech like the guy from the old Federal Express commercials.

The parallels he drew between Obama and Lincoln — their relative inexperience, their opposition to popular wars, their eloquence — were a reminder that long years in office are no substitute for judgment, even if you think Obama = Lincoln is a stretch.

The wind at Obama’s back

The following Michele McPhee quote — uttered within the last five minutes — is guaranteed 95 percent word-for-word:

The last time he [Obama] had a crowd this big, he blew his nose. And it was nasty, folks. What’s he going to do this time? Is there going to be flatulence on the stage? And are people going to cheer?

Simply amazing.

The Joe and Beau show

Maybe I’m speech’d out, but I wasn’t hugely taken with Joe Biden’s address. He was good, and he certainly did what he needed to do. But there was a ragged, stop-and-start feel to it. Clinton and Kerry were better.

Beau Biden, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more moving. Judging from what I saw on television, there wasn’t a dry eye in the convention hall.

Funny, but I thought Bruce Springsteen was going to come out when it was announced that there would be a “special guest.”

Kerry on fire

I’ve never seen him that impassioned on his own behalf. And if Bill Clinton was more intent on whacking Bush than McCain, Kerry made up for it. He even poked fun at himself as he ran through a litany of McCain flip-flops.

Good Jason Zengerle piece in The New Republic on Kerry’s revival as one of Obama’s most effective surrogates. If Biden falls flat tonight, remember: I told you so.

The Big Dog barks

The good: He defined the issues more succinctly than anyone has managed all year — restoring the American Dream at home and restoring America’s image abroad. Vague, obviously, but more evocative than mere change for change’s sake.

The not-so-good: He made a compelling case against Bush, who, the last time I checked, isn’t running. Yes, he tied McCain to the Bush agenda, but he left the knots kind of loose.

The accidental column-ist

How stupid is this? Obama is going to be giving his convention speech in front of some faux-Greek columns, which isn’t exactly new — Bush himself did it just four years ago. And have you walked around the Statehouse lately? Or ever?

But anonymous (i.e., Clinton) Democrats claim this is more proof that Obama thinks he’s Zeus or something, the media are freaking out and the Republicans blasted out an e-mail about the “Temple of Obama.”

Could everyone please grow up?

The speech of her life

Well, that was quite a performance by Hillary Clinton, was it not? Unlike the Mark Warners of the world, she managed to talk about herself and use that in a compelling way to transfer her personal message to Barack Obama. Also, for the first time this week the Democrats were drinking the blood of their enemies. And loving it.

I never would have imagined when Clinton first ran for the Senate eight years ago that the stilted public speaker of that campaign could grow into the accomplished, and even moving, figure that she is today.

Not to get carried away. She was not this good while she was running for president. Not even close. Like Ted Kennedy and Al Gore, to name two other examples, defeat seems to have brought out the best in her.

A presidential makeover

In my latest for the Guardian, I argue that two contrasting speeches by Michelle Obama show she understands what works in Chicago doesn’t work on the national stage. Unfortunately for Democrats, the Obamas’ efforts to reinvent themselves risk making them seem inauthentic and leave them vulnerable to Republican attack.

Tell us something we don’t know

I just spent, oh, the last hour and a half reading Roger Simon’s dauntingly well-reported piece for the Politico on how Barack Obama managed to beat the Clinton juggernaut. (Chuck Todd was praising it on Tom Ashbrook’s show this morning. Do we really believe he had time to read it?)

Like Joshua Green’s Atlantic article on what went wrong with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it is full of insight and nuance. And, like Green’s piece, I ultimately found it unsatisfying. Here’s the problem: No one other than a political junkie is going to read such a story. And we political junkies have been living all this in real time for many, many months.

Both Simon and Green remind us of details we might have forgotten, skillfully weave a mass of information into coherent narratives and come up with some previously unreported nuggets. (Green: Mark Penn is smarter and more awful than we thought. Simon: Obama’s brain-trusters actually believed they could knock Clinton out in the opening weeks of the primary season.) In the end, though, they don’t do much more than tell us what we already know.

If there’s one thing of value I learned from the two accounts, it’s that no one should believe the Democrats would be in better shape today if Clinton had won the nomination — especially if she had won it easily, and had not had to put her dysfunctional campaign staff to the test.

OK, two. I think it’s a pretty good bet that Simon and Green are going to write books about this historic campaign. At nearly 16,000 words, Simon’s article is already about a quarter of the way there.