7:30 PM: Not everyone concurs with Ben Smith’s assessment.
Bob Casey is speaking, making up for Bill Clinton’s famous snub of his father in 1992, and says he’s here to “show respect” for Obama. He echoes Paterson’s line from earlier tonight about “four more months”, and makes a crowd chant about it. He seems genuinely surprised and baffled that his speech is having any effect at all.
6:50 PM: Ben Smith of Politico points out that tonight’s critiques of McCain have been policy-based and not personal, “without the derisive references to his personal wealth that mark the campaign’s television ads”.
Perhaps, but it’s not so on the ground. The hottest button at the convention is one that mimics McCain’s logo and typography (Optima, an awesome 70’s-academic-journal font that brings McCain just the right note of futile fustiness) and reads “ASK ME HOW MANY HOUSES I OWN”.
6:40 PM: Arizona governor Janet Napolitano — a Democrat elected in a state that sent an anti-MLK used-car dealer to the governor’s mansion two decades ago — got a big welcome. Currently we’re in one of the convention’s “town hall” segments, hosted by Napolitano’s fellow Demfemgov (we are coining newspeak neologisms, for no clear reason) Jennifer Granholm of Michigan. The shift in tone from slick teleprompted speeches to staged folksiness is jarring in the extreme.
One of the blogging delegates, Brian O’Donnell, puts down the divided-party story that most traditional media have been following closely and most blogs and analysty types have been deprecating at every opportunity.
6:19 PM: It’s pretty damn loud down here in the blogomax, and Spackerman must be pissed.
5:52 PM: We’re breaking it up a little bit for you tonight. Rahm Emanuel is on and intoning. Nobody ever said the prospective Speaker had to be a dynamo on the stump.
3 responses so far ↓
1 tom casey // Aug 27, 2008 at 1:03 am
Go Dan!
2 DoubleSpeak with Matthew and Peter Slutsky » Warner, Schweitzer, Hillary Oh My! // Aug 27, 2008 at 3:12 am
[...] the full rundown at The Delegates here, here, and [...]
3 McGill // Aug 27, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Hillary did her job! She gave permission for her supporters to back Obama. Someone else will have to speak to the economy, despite what the Washington Post says.
Kids were great! They did their job, as did Michelle.
Warner and Hillary were strong and Fast Eddie Rendell will come out fighting to “smack ‘em down”, as will Joe B.
I await Bill’s speech tonight. Can’t imagine what his job will be.
Go bloggers!
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