Kerry's DNC speech

[dougo]

Well, I liked it. He said some good things, although some of them were a bit subtle or encoded. I liked what he said about not wearing his faith on his sleeve, and the Lincoln quote: "The question is not whether God is on our side. The question is whether we are on God’s side." (Okay, he paraphrased it so it wasn't a question, but I don't have the speech text handy.) I liked his implied slam at Bush for being anti-science (yes, prog beat me to it in mentioning this). I liked the implied-implied slam against the marriage amendment (something about not using the Constitution for political purposes), although it was a bit strange coming immediately after the direct challenge to Bush to avoid negative campaigning. I was amused to hear him use Nader's catchphrase "corporate welfare". (Although he also talked about tax breaks for corporations who kept jobs in the US, and isn't that just another kind of corporate handout too?) And, if you squinted really hard, the line about not spending $50k to send a youth to jail for life could be construed as a slam on the drug war, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.

I also liked that he was energetic and fired up without looking ridiculous like Gore always did when he tried to act emotional. Kerry still has problems making his smile look genuine, though, but fortunately a Wartime President (which is definitely what he's running for) doesn't really have to smile. I was a little disconcerted by his rocking back and forth, though, and he seemed to be talking too fast at times; he was even getting a bit sweaty towards the end. Surely some GOP operatives would start spreading cocaine rumors if Bush's own drug past weren't such a liability...

There were also some verbal gaffes that made me chuckle, and I hope they're on the Daily Show tomorrow. The only ones I remember were "hair pollution" (in Harlem), and "senators and menators" (in Congress) (Dr. Seuss would be proud of that one). Oh, and there was one where he said "terrorism" instead of "anti-terrorism" or something like that. Yes, it's puerile to laugh at marble-mouth mistakes, but it's been so fun to hear all the Bushisms and we wouldn't want to be partisan about it, would we? Update: I found the advance text of his speech; the line was supposed to be "We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations", but he dropped the "anti", whoops. And I totally did not figure out that he was trying to say "Senators and members of Congress", even though I rewound and replayed it a couple times to hear him say "menators".

Finally, I was actually fairly happy that they used U2's "Beautiful Day" as his speech ended. Most of the other DNC music I've heard has been dreadful, a continuation of Clinton's watered-down Boomer nostalgia, and coming out to some weakly perky Springsteen song after Max Cleland's emotional introduction seemed like a real bad choice—why not use some majestic John Williams-esque orchestration or something? But "Beautiful Day" was a pretty good choice if they had to pick a pop tune to wrap it all up: genuinely anthemic and optimistic but not overbearing or pompous, and it's even almost current. (Too bad they're not American, though, and don't think too hard about the line "what you don't have you don't need it now" when everyone is waving "hope is on the way" signs.)

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I'm still pretty sure Bush is going to win, though. But I wouldn't mind being wrong.

Comments

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Of course, you know that if Bush does win, all the registered Democrats you know are going to hold you personally responsible.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I'll just taunt them with "a vote for Kerry was a vote for Bush".

Wait, we shouldn't joke. This is THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN OUR LIFETIME. AAAAA

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

No one, and I mean no one, is sure *who* is going to win. Or, if they are, they just have a 50-50 chance of being right. Even the futures market which I bloged about has been going from 49.5 to 50.5 percent.

There was also a time he said "idear" instead of "idea." Yeah, the rocking was kind of annoying, but it's good he finished the speech early, so that it would get the coverage it needs. It was powerful yesterday when Edwards said "You cannot run, you cannot hide. We will find you, and we will destroy you." Talk about unexpected, but it will likely come out as showing his strength.

BTW, providing incentives isn't really the same thing as corporate welfare.

I like how he tied one of the commandments, "Honor your mother and your father," with keeping social security secure. I think both he and Edwards brought the Dems to the left again; except for some fiscally conservative issues which are just plain smart. Clinton showed that Dems too can learn the lessons of economics; and Bush has proved that supply-siders still exist on the Reps side, even though there are very, very few supply-siders remaining in the field of ecnomics (reason: it's flawed; it was even refered to once by Bush Sr. as "voodoo economics").

So, basically, as a former Green who knows economics, the ticket is basically right where I'd like it to be. I don't feel the compromise I did with Gore (where I voted for Nader in MA instead), and I don't feel the compromise I did with Deal (when I donated to him only because he was in the lead and I already determined not to waste my vote).

As per your other comment before: IRV and proportional representation are tied. The point Nader was probably making was that, under a system of just IRV, the result isn't too different than with pluralty voting: the winners are in the center and only throw bones (some with bits of meat on them, even) to the extreme bases.

PS: good to see Kucinich come to his senses. I think now that that was his plan the whole time. To be a beacon of hope for the far-left democrats, never giving up for them (and, if you saw the roll call, all of the votes only went to Kerry or Kucinich, though Kucinich would only pick up single digit delegates for only a single-digit number of states), and then finally uniting them with Kerry.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I understand Nader's point about IRV and PR going hand-in-hand, but it was a non-answer to the question "why aren't you putting more emphasis on IRV in your campaign?".

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

I agree about the sweating and the rocking back and forth. It also bugged me when he would flick out his tongue on the side of his mouth; it reminded me of the tongue-mouth tics that people sometimes get when they get older.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Edwards does the tongue-flick thing too. Letterman (or was it The Daily Show? I forget now) had an amusing slo-mo close-up of a particularly lascivious-looking tongue maneuver.

[jtemperance.livejournal.com]

When I was in England they were using "Beautiful Day" as the theme music for the Saturday soccer "Match of the Day" so that's the first thing that came to mind when I heard that song.

Also loved the swearing on CNN when the balloons failed to come down. "What the f*** are you people doing up there?"

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Hey, no need for **teri*ks here.

I was watching C-SPAN so I missed the swear, but later I turned to CNN and saw Wolf Blitzer apologizing, while making it very clear that it was no one at CNN who said the "bad word", but the convention center director Don Mischer.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

I missed this, what was the swearing? Is it a big story?

There was a recent Krugman opinion piece about how trivial matters are Big News on television. I get approximately 0% of my news from television. So, while I can tell you all about Kerry's energy policy, I can't tell you how big of a story any of the little matters have been.

[jtemperance.livejournal.com]

For some reason CNN had the convention center director miked after Kerry stopped speaking. I don't think it was that big of a story. It isn't going to affect the election or anything, it was just a funny thing that happened.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if anything it will give the Kerry campaign a true worker, blue collar type of feel. Erhm, maybe not. Glad it's not a big deal, though.