9:04 PM: Biden is so used to the spotlight, and Obama so chill, that they’re having an actual dinner-party-farewell conversation out there on the stage.
8:58 PM: No, a head-fake to the climax — not one where everyone’s up on their feet, but one where we’re hushed and thinking. The end comes as a surprise.
Some kind of pop-country song is playing. Where’s Bruce?
Michelle and the kids come out. Everyone loves the kids.
8:55 PM: See? he draws you in with quiet, nodding language. Now for the ramp up to the big climax.
8:52 PM: Stars and Stripes large and small have been distributed liberally throughout the crowd, but the only non-American flag I can pick out in the stadium is a Greek one, which will delight Lauren and Cameron. I have a perverse urge to wave a giant French tricolor just to see what would happen.
8:48 PM: “Yes we can” and “U-S-A” goes together in one cheer. For a thousand political messaging specialists, it drives their eyes into the back of their head and curls their toes.
8:44 PM: “We are the party of Kennedy” gets a bigger “yeah!” than “we are the party of Roosevelt”. Kind of a shame.
8:43 PM: Speaking of tough-guy language, tuff talk about Osama gets a huge ‘oooooooh, no he didn’t’ here in Bloggen Island and gets the audience in the stadium out of their seats and waving flags.
8:41 PM: More than 12%? Someone who is bored and has Excel handy, do the math for us if you’re so inclined.
Equal pay for equal work has become a big trope of the Convention speeches, particularly this and Biden’s. It hasn’t got much attention from the commentariat, but it’s a big part of ramping up big majorities among women to offset McCain’s appeal among men. Dumb men who like tough guys, that is.
8:34 PM: Scrupulous attention paid to gender-balanced and -neutral language throughout, and lots of respect offered to specific women.
Ending dependence on oil from the Middle East in ten years is pretty concrete stuff. It’s only 12% or so, though…
8:27 PM: As it goes on, he gets a a little more comfortable with slight digressions from the text. Nothing Biden-scale, where Joe inserted line after line to the distress of many, but little bits here and there.
8:22 PM: And a new cheer is born: Eight is enough.
8:21 PM: Every other paragraph has a big line in it but he’s getting cheers more frequently than that, of course. If you have a laptop handy, read along when you’re watching the speech on TV; mapping the emotional cadence of the speech to the words on the page helps illustrate how Obama gets it done.
8:15 PM: The speech, via NYT.
The down and dirty, via this guy:
Page 1: Dean and Durbin are thanked first, then Hillary. Big-theme language.
Page 2: Turns to direct criticisms of McCain; “John McCain doesn’t get it.”
Page 3: Links the problems he criticizes to personal stories.
Page 4: Lists economic measures, doesn’t back down on energy: “drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close”.
Page 5: Education, health care, responsibility. “Moral obligation”.
Page 6: The war. “John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.”
Page 7: Controversies couched in unity language. Echoes of ‘04: holding firm on positions on abortion, guns, same sex marriage, immigration.
Page 8: Refers to Dr. King without naming him. “We cannot turn back.”
8:13 PM: Half the people in the stadium — and half the press box — has their cameras out.
8:11 PM: There he is.
8:03 PM: David Strathairn (if I’m not mistaken) narrates the introductory video, and the stadium goes dark. We have the text…
8:00 PM: Durbin shouts out the campaign volunteers, who haven’t gotten love so far.
Word from Lauren on the floor that Kerry is chilling among the Massachusetts delegation like a commoner.
7:55 PM: A lull before Dick Durbin introduces Obama.
We were lucky to be among the first admitted in the regular-audience entrance on the west side of the stadium, which was the worst of the two main inlets. Apparently the media entrance was screwed anyway, no no fourth-estate privileges for us.
7:49 PM: Greg Sargent of Talking Points Memo gives Gore’s speech a close read, opining that “he evokes people’s regret about choosing Bush over him as a way to infuse the current choice with even more emotional urgency:.
7:41 PM: The North Carolinan woman, a recovering Republican, sounds like a world-weary character you would meet while eating pie in a coffee shop, which is, I suppose, the point.
7:33 PM: A sequence of reg’lr folks emerges to deliver some working-class proud middle-class straight talk. The second person, a woman from Ohio, is actually quite good and not intimidated by speaking in a football stadium full of attentive people.
7:24 PM: The powers that be have passed out a number of giant American flags. I saw young volunteers struggling to load them onto the elevator earlier.
Surprise Biden appearance!
7:17 PM: We’re among the lucky many to have been drawn to stay here for the Obama speech. Phew.
Susan Eisenhower speaks. The strategy to offset the Republicans’ customary small number of prominent loudmouth former Democrats with a large number of quiet, moderate former Republicans has attracted little notice so far.
Wes Clark comes out in an otherwise obscure lineup of retired military brass and gets a cheer. Guess this will be his only convention appearance.
3 responses so far ↓
1 tom casey // Aug 29, 2008 at 3:10 am
So Obama here takes the high road quite explicitly AND respectfully, but forcefully, takes on Mc Cain’s silliest crack, i.e that Obama is ambitious and by inference not really patriotic. This not letting attacks pass apparently is necessary so it’s inspiring to see it done akido fashion, and not with a flesh ripping cleaver. I’m inspired and pumped.
2 McGill // Aug 29, 2008 at 3:52 am
Inspiring speech which covered all the bases, I thought. I was amazed that Tavis Smiley’s guests, Cornell West and a female head of a women’s college whose name I can’t remember now, both criticized Obama for not naming MLK. I thought he did that because he didn’t have to. Such a grand, pivotal moment in our history doesn’t have to be explained yet again, just referred to.
Reading along while the speech was being given added depth and perspective. He’s good! So is the blogger.
3 Lisa // Aug 29, 2008 at 12:41 pm
another one of my favorite moments: When Barney Smith (lifelong Republican who lost his job in Indiana when it was shipped overseas) said “We need a president who puts Barney Smith over Smith Barney.” We all cracked up at the convention watch party I attended.
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