Post (and Pre) Convention Thoughts

Now that one convention is over and another is about to begin (if a hurricane doesn't interfere -- and doesn't the fact that the GOP convention might be interrupted by a hurricane almost three years to the day after Katrina indicate to you that if there is a God He has a really fucked-up sense of humor?), this might be a good moment to sort out some thoughts on what has happened, as well as what is about to happen.

I will admit that I was slightly disappointed by Barack Obama's acceptance speech. It was sort of the declamatory equivalent of "Alexander Nevsky" -- he sacrificed a lot of what made him great to begin with, and I'm not at all sure that the trade-off was worth it. I understand the logic behind it (which was to give a lot of specifics in order to rebut the notion that he's all eloquence without substance), but in the end it came off a lot like one of Bill Clinton's old State of the Union messages from the '90s -- a laundry list of proposals that was meant to please everyone but became instead a little tiring to listen to.

Bill Clinton's speech, on the other hand, was a classic. He said everything that Hillary should have said but failed to deliver in her solipsistic, overly self-congratulatory speech. I've been critical of both Clintons during this campaign, but I fail to see how anyone could have improved on Bill Clinton's performance on Wednesday night (certainly Obama didn't top it the night after). It reminded me of Babe Ruth coming out of retirement and back to Yankee Stadium and telling the crowd, "You want to see a home run? I'll show you a home run." And then BAM! He hits it out of the ballpark.

Joe Biden did well by himself too. No one would ever consider him a master of eloquence (his own eloquence, anyway), but he told his story and helped middle-class voters connect with the ticket in a way that might help Obama with the voters he's going to need in the Fall. I think he was a brilliant pick and I look forward to his performance in the upcoming debates.

Then John McCain made his choice for vice president -- and chose a 44-year-old self-professed "hockey mom" from Alaska with even less experience than Barack Obama. A brilliant choice? A "tactical mistake" (as my old friend Robert George put it on his blog)? I'm sure the rabid right-wingers at Fox are spraying their pants over the choice (although I haven't seen any of the cable coverage, and am glad I haven't), but I'm with Robert. This was a very high-risk move on McCain's part that really calls his judgment into question.

Think about it -- Obama has a search committee that includes the daughter of John F. Kennedy spend weeks going through and vetting all the prospective candidates before agreeing on one of the most senior and respected members of the senate.

John McCain, on the other hand, picks a woman almost three decades his junior with very little experience whom he had met exactly once. And who's under investigation at the moment.

Forget about Sarah Palin -- what does that say about John McCain? If I were the Democrats, that's the line I'd take. What does it say about John McCain's judgement that he made the most important decision of his candidacy so quickly and casually? Is this the guy you want deciding whether or not we go to war with Iran?

The GOP in general, and John McCain in particular, are going to have a lot of explaning to do next week. And I can't wait to see what, if anything, they come up with. If they don't get washed out by a hurricane first.

Hillary's Big Moment

I'm back. Did you miss me?

I hadn't intended to go so long without posting, but various circumstances (some technical problems and one traumatic disruption in my personal life) got in the way.

But anyway, now I'm back. Ready to disgorge my opinions on all and sundry (especially sundry).

So Hillary finally got her moment in the sun last night -- prime time at the Democratic Convention. How did she do?

Other people thought she did better than I did. I found her speech to be disappointing. She knew what she was up there to do and in my opinion she did it halfheartedly. Once again, when the Clintons speak it's all about the Clintons. She had to make the case for Barack Obama and I don't think she did it well enough. For one long stretch (more than 800 words in a speech that only had slightly more than 2,300 words in it, total) she didn't even bother to mention him by name.

Will it matter? Will her speech appease the legions of whiny menopausal bitches who were (and, for all I know, still are) threatening to vote for McCain because they didn't get their way? I have no idea.

But Hillary's case boils down to this one passage from her speech:

I want you to ask yourselves, were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that young boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

I have a sinking feeling that Hillary's hordes are going to say that they really were in it for themselves -- that they saw Hillary as a proxy for their stunted lives and that Hillary's going all the way to the White House was going to make it all better, that it would be the ultimate emotional Band-Aid on the boo-boo of their lives. Which might help explain why they went so berserk when she got beaten like a red-headed stepchild by a younger, smarter candidate -- who just happened to be male.

This campaign has a long way to go, and it may well be enough nail-biter. Did Hillary do enough to bring her supporters around to Obama's side? And will there be a price to pay if it's perceived that she didn't?