Democratic Convention Musings

Maybe I'm the only one but I wasn't all that impressed by Michelle Obama's speech on Monday night. The speech was fine and she did a good job delivering it (although i could have swore I saw a bit of teeth clenching in some of her delivery) but she just seemed to be so muted. Love her or hate her the Michelle Obama who we were introduced to in the early days of this election cycle was a strongwilled woman with a good bit of character to her. Of course she was derided by people because this country has a very antiquated idea of how a first lady should behave...its all pearls, plastered on smile and demure attitude. I was hoping to see a bit more Theresa Heinz Kerry and less Mrs. Bush ( pick one it really doesn't matter). I guess this is the game that must be played to keep people from being afraid of the "angry black woman".



Rep. Dennis Kucinich gave a rousing speech on Tuesday afternoon/evening. He said all the things you would expect in a Democratic Convention speech (and had been missing up till this point): how much Bush has sucked, how much McCain does suck, a little cheerleading for the current nominee. But no one saw it because Dennis was exiled to the early evening/late afternoon shift while the Mr & Mrs Walking Dead Mark Warner and Kathleen Sibelius) were trotted in primetime to bore the assembled masses into a catatonic state. We can all agree that Dennis is funny looking but the guy deserves better than he gets from his own party.



So the anouncement of Joe Biden has given no hint of a bounce to the Obama campaign which doesn't surprise me. For starters Biden is the antithesis of everything that Obama has built his political persona on. He's been in the senate since forever, he voted for the Iraq War and under his time on the Judiciary Committee we got not only Alito and Roberts (both of whom Joe seemed to glefully let pass through to the high court) but he totally frakked up the Clarence Thomas hearings. But those greatest hits aren't the biggest reasons why Biden is a horrible choice.
Nope, the main reasons Biden sucks is that he is a whore for the banking/credit card industries in his home state and to show just how big of a whore he wrote the horrible Bankruptcy Bill that sticks it to the regular people who try and file for bankruptcy while making it easier than  ever for corporations to do the same thing. So the pick of Joe Buiden just makes me envision Joe doing for the credit cards and banks what Dick Cheney did for the oil industry...namely giving them carte blanche to rewrite laws as they see fit. You can't attack McCain on being horrible for working class folks when your running mate has already tried to fuck them in the ass with no lube.
Then there is the fact that Joe Biden seems to have a colossal hardon for any draconian "tough on crime" legislation that he can dream up. Joe is the genius who wrote the law that got Tommy Chong locked up for a year. In Biden's world the way to win the "War on Drugs" is to create more and more strict laws that really amount to jack shit. You'd think that a guy who has been around as long as Joe (he coined the term "Drug Czar") would have realized by now that harsher penalties and longer jail sentences isn't the answer to fixing the drug problem in this country.
Add to that Bidens recorded history of sucking at the teat of John McCain, lets count the ways Joe has allowed himself to be teabagged by McCain:

Calls McCain his personal hero
Said he would be honored to be McCain's running mate
Said that the Iraq War would have been successful if Bush had listened to McCain
As recently as this past April Biden praised McCain's foreign policy skills
Praised McCain's leadership on the global warming issue

And I'm sure all of this stuff will come up when Joe goes into attack dog mode during the rest of the political season which will sorta neuter his effectiveness.



For the past few weeks all the focus of this election has been on whether or not Hillary Clinton was doing enough to help Obama win.
"Her body language is off", "Her eyes give her away", "She isn't speaking enthusiastically enough". "She's plotting against him so she can run again in 2012".
Boo fucking hoo.
It seemed like the groundwork was being layed to blame Hillary Clinton if Obama didn't win in November.
This despite the fact that Clinton has done more than any other loser in Democratic Primary history for the winner.
She endorsed almost immediately after conceding, she has campaigned with and for Obama and she gave a rousing stump speech on his behalf at the convention. Let's compare that to recent losers:
At the 88 Convention Jesse Jackson threatened to have his name entered into contention for the vice-presidency which would have forced a floor fight and during his speech Jesse never endorsed Dukakis by name.
In 1992 Jerry Brown put his name into nomination at the convention, seconded his own nomination and went on to give a speech where he didn't even mention Bill Clinton let alone endorse him. One of Brown's best quotes during the election was that "supporting Clinton was like buying a ticket on the Titanic".
And let's not get started on how big a douchebag Ted Kennedy, the most revered elder statesman of the Democratic Party and the Lion of the Senate, acted when he lost to Jimmy Carter. He had poor Jimmy chasing him all over the convention arena trying to get a picture of the two of them shaking hands to no avail.
Well last night Clinton took the stage and delivered the most effective stump speech on Obama's behalf
 that I've seen since this whole thing started. She hit every beat that she needed to: recognized her supporters as well as her own impressive showing, implored her supporters to back Obama and took direct shots at McCain (and Bush too!). She looked presidential. At the very least she looked vice-presidential.
So now the ball is in Obama's court where it should have been all along. No one is obligated to vote for him and as the candidate it is Obama's job to convince people that he is worth voting for...no one else can be blamed for any failures in this campaign except for the Obama camp themselves. Win or lose the credit or blame goes to Barack Obama.
And for all of those who have been wishing and hoping for Hillary to "just go away", well sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but she has positioned herself to be the "Lioness of Senate" in the Democratic Party. She is incredibly popular with her base and her performance last night has won her even more converts. She's not going anywhere.




Joe Biden is the "featured" speaker tonight since he formally accepts the vice-presidential candidacy but in all honesty no one really gives two shits about what Biden is going to say. Instead all of the attention will be focused on Bill Clinton. No one knows what the hell he plans on talking about tonight but after seeing how Hillary performed last night I think it is a safe bet to say that Bill will kick copious amounts of ass when he gives his speech. Hopefully he'll follow his wife's lead and give a full throated endorsement of Obama just to silence the completely asinine critics who can't seem to understand why Clinton has seemed a bit cool towards Obama. I guess they don't understand why Bill would need a little time to get over having his presidency (the only two term Dem president since FDR!) shat upon and being labeled a racist with the tacit approval of the Obama campaign.
One of the things I have always liked about Bill Clinton is that he has a hard time being disingenuous and this has especially become true since he left the White House. If he has hard feelings about something or someone then its right there for the world to see. In this current political climate where you can't tell one lying shit heel from another its kind of refreshing to have someone around who is pretty much an open book emotionally.