Democratic Convention 2012

[Bob Kohm]

Jude, I've sat through more speeches by more Presidents, candidates, Senators & Governors, right down the line, than I care to remember-- from Reagan as a kid to Mario Cuomo to Ted Kennedy to Barack Obama and too many stops in between to remember. The further I get from this, the more I think that this was the best political speech of my lifetime. It was amazing. It wasn't a Pericles oration, it was a Bill Clinton talk-- Obama is a orator, Bill Clinton just had a personal chat with the country. I honestly don't know how he does that.

[Judge Jude]

Yeah, I can picture that.
Gotta clear some rough life roadblocks, but I would say that your comment means that anyone from any political stripe has to at least check in ther...

[Bob Kohm]

Last thought before I go to bed... know who the only reasonable comparison I can make is, stylistically? Will Rogers.

[cardboardbox]

great speech. Should be worth a 2-3 point bump all by himself.

[JudeBaldo]

Bill Clinton - showing how the kiddies how it's done. Finally saw the speech and as a former debater, I loved the debate style rebuttal.

[B-Fly]

As much as I like Obama - more than I liked Clinton, both personally and politically - Clinton in around 45 minutes gave a far better argument for the Obama Administration's policies and choices than Obama or anyone in his administration has been able to do in four years. It's one area where Obama has honestly disappointed me. In 2008, I thought he'd be better than he's turned out to be at making the cases for his policies to the American people and getting wider buy-in.

[Bob Kohm]

...and this morning, to rub salt in the raw, open wounds Bill Clinton opened up in the collective Republican hide, from Factcheck.org:

"Former president Bill Clinton's stem-winding nomination speech was a fact-checker's nightmare: lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims, producing little for us to write about.

Republicans will find plenty of Clinton's scorching opinions objectionable. But with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out." http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic...6/1?csp=34news

Ouch. And now Clinton goes on the road, stumping the swing states and delivering versions of that speech with all of its plain truths to independent voters. More interestingly, the venues he'll be speaking in...? Yes, they will be attempting to line them up in Districts and areas with House seats that are vulnerable.

[B-Fly]

On the changes to the Platform, it's definitely a screw-up, but I'm curious as to the nature of it. The G-d reference in the 2004 platform was so innocuous that I can't see any value in poking people of faith in the eye by deleting it. What's a bigger screw-up is that it seems as if it was changed without the advice and consent of President Obama. Same thing on the removal of Jerusalem. Was the removal inadvertent? If intentional, it's hard to believe that it was with the advice and consent of the President or his political team. Folks can complain all they want about "capitulation", but the changes were stupid in the first instance and never would have or should have been made. I fault the Obama team for allowing it to happen, but ultimately, the President was almost certainly correct to demand it be fixed yesterday, even if it's embarrassing.

[cardboardbox]

I fault the Obama team for allowing it to happen, but ultimately, the President was almost certainly correct to demand it be fixed yesterday, even if it's embarrassing.

While the campaign at first said Obama had seen the language prior to the convention, it later said he did not learn of the issue until Wednesday morning, when he became aware of seeing news coverage of the issue.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories...801.html?hp=f1

The Jerusalem thing goes right in line with this video that I always found amusing for its idiocy:



I'm pretty sure I dont care that much, but what is the point of pretending Jerusalem is not that capital?

[gcstomp]

Clinton delivered a really powerful speech. If there were a large block of open minded undecideds who watched it would be substantially more difficult to rationalize a vote for Romney. Among many challenges Obama faces, none are greater than the elephant in the room.

I dont know how else to phrase this, but Obama has had to deal with racism blocking his progress, a radical hate agenda that needs the man to fail at all costs. The birther issue, c'mon, that was silliness prompted by trying to seperate "him" from "us", as in trying to paint him as an outsider. The people who even now call him a mulsim, or unamerican, that is thinly veiled racism that just falls under more PC labels. I think we as a country were just not ready for Obama, a true patriot who could not foresee he would not be welcomed into office with same respect all entering presidents start off with. If the needing him to fail block of people viewed him visually as Kennedy, instead of as an alien outsider, we could have made major strides with this man, a truly smart and caring president leading the way carried by spirit of cooperation.

One of 2 things can happen, Romney will win and the Banana Republic continued acceleration of wealth accumulation by the hyper rich, the few hundred billionaires who are the true beneficiaries of massive tax cuts/breaks for the elite at the expense of an ever shrinking middle class. Or Obama wins, ever idealistic that a balanced approach to economy while preserving american morality, as in we do not let people starve in the streets, try to preserve health care, social security, hands off womans rights over her own body, etc, but is confronted again by the ever unyielding wall of obstructionism that again, need Obama to fail, at all costs.

[Hornsby]

Gotta love this...making the journos work a bit.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Bill Clinton’s stem-winding nomination speech was a fact-checker’s nightmare: lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims, producing little for us to write about.

Republicans will find plenty of Clinton’s scorching opinions objectionable. But with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out.

http://factcheck.org/2012/09/our-clinton-nightmare/

[Judge Jude]

I suppose nobody is happier than I am to see mostly accurate speeches.
Then again:

"he said that since 1961, when John F. Kennedy took office, 42 million private-sector jobs had been added while Democrats held the White House, compared with 24 million while Republicans were in office."

Well, there are even better correlations with obviously absurd things like which football conference wins the Super Bowl. Using that line would be accurate, too, but clearly not relevant. It's just a coincidence.

Certainly which party has the Presidency is a far more useful figure - but is it more relevant than which parties have held the Senate and/or the House during those times? (and no, I don't which of these dysfunctional parties "wins" by that measure)

If so, then I'm a little scared - I read that we broke away from the British so that one man couldn't be king!

I see the power of any President to "create jobs" as wildly overrated. That is great for Obama 2012, since I don't particularly hold the current unemployment rate against him at all. And if times were booming, I wouldn't give Obama all the credit for that, either...

[Judge Jude]

hearing second-hand that Gaby Giffords brought the house down there tonight.

good for them, and good for her. for all the bull**** at these conventions, let's applaud a gutsy survivor of a madman for her courage - who cares which party!

......

somebody gave John Kerry the most killer line of his career:

"Ask Osama bin Laden is he's better off now than four years ago!"

That is as big a political speech grand slam as you can get, imo.

But I did see a little of the rest of his speech, and he seemed like the unpopular kid who suddenly feels like the class president, so he starts mocking Romney.

#okpotklettle

......

did see some of Jill Biden, Joe's wife - wow, that was impressive. I know the tough family backstory already, but she told it not for sob story but as inspirational.

[cardboardbox]

So.... that speech last night didnt really help.

[GTAXI]

So.... that speech last night didnt really help.

I can't see how it helped. It was nothing new, just the same old soaring crap he’s been putting out for the last four years. By now it’s been heard so often that when hearing it yet again, the mind goes into automatic shutdown every third sentence.