Initial Thoughts
I thought this was a very strong speech. About exactly what was needed. It was a strong speech. He made the case for himself; he laid out clear policy goals; and he aggressively set forth the stakes of the campaign. He made the case against John McCain while not attacking his character -- which makes a clear contrast with McCain's aggressively personal, denigrating campaign strategy.
I've heard a few people say that he seemed to hold back from giving the soaring speech he might have given. But I suspect that was intentional and I think a good decision. Meta-themes and tonality form the deeper structure of political communication. And the aim of this speech was not eloquence but strength.
I've said myself that Obama's campaign needs to be more aggressive. They need to hold the initiative, and attack, attack, attack. But attacking doesn't mean bludgeoning -- at least not necessarily. It means making the case and defining the argument. Not running a campaign by reacting -- well or not -- to your opponent's attacks. As Paul Begala said in our interview with him a couple days ago, it's not about rapid response but rapid attack. Personally I might prefer an even more aggressive tack from Obama's surrogates. But I think here Obama himself had the balance just right.
I also think he made the right decision to directly (and, in the case of the 'celeb' meme, explicitly) confront the smears, particularly the attacks on Obama's Americanness and patriotism. The tone didn't strike me as defensive or outraged (which is a different side of defensiveness) but more one of what I might call assertive contempt.
At the end of the day, a convention is the most orchestrated -- you might say, the most contrived -- event of modern political theater. So the moments after its conclusions can give a very illusory impression. But taken that impression on its own merits, for this moment, John McCain looks very, very small. Both in stature and as a person.
Taken as a whole, each day in progression, successive speeches hitting different notes and building in sequence, this convention was very strong.
Meanwhile, the AP hops back on the tire swing.
TPMtv reports live from on the ground at Invesco Field after the speech:
--Josh Marshall
Live Barack Blogging
Though I may just want to watch ...
And we're off ...
10:18 PM ... Watching how the background actually looks, the Greek temple nonsense seems awfully silly.
10:23 PM ... I think -- not just in the speech but in the lead-up over the course of the afternoon -- the impression of this event, holding it in a stadium, is one of a mass event, an open event, a popular event, not one of grandiosity as many of the critics claimed. (I would structure that sentence better; but I'm trying to listen to what he's saying at the same time.)
10:26 PM ... "It's time for them to own their failure."
10:42 PM ... "John McCain stands alone." Very good on framing (sigh, hate the phrase) the debate over Iraq in which everything is trending toward Obama's position.
10:47 PM ... An echo of the 2004 keynote that put him here.
10:50 PM ... I think he's doing a good job inoculating against next week's attacks (and responding to the earlier ones) without appearing defensive or reactive.
--Josh Marshall
What Might Have Been
It's easy to remember that had a full vote count taken place down in Florida, we might be in the final months of the Gore administration. A lot of what ifs. And in this tear in Al Gore's speech, he tells us what would have been different -- it was a passage in the speech that clearly came from a deep well within ...
Click here to view the whole speech.
--Josh Marshall
Still Hope
If you're bummed about not getting a ticket to watch the Obama speech at the Invesco Center, you'll be happy to know they're still giving away tickets for John McCain's veep announcement tomorrow at the aptly-named 12,000 seat Nutter Center.
--Josh Marshall
What Say You?
Okay, while we're waiting for the main event, how about a parlor game we can believe in? Given the options, which McCain veep choice should Dems be rooting for?
TPM Reader KB writes in: "Whom to root for? Pawlenty or Romney? I know that Romney can be easily mocked, but he seems more crisp on the attack. Would be nice to avoid that and go with the nothingburger Pawlenty. Plus, if Romeny gets passed over Rove and K-Lo will be heartbroken, and Halperin's sources would have been wrong. Honestly, I'm torn."
My answer was Romney. As much as Pawlenty strikes me as a wet mop, folks in Minnesota say he's deceptively lame. Better a pol than he looks. On the other hand, Mitt comes prepackaged with aggressive anti-McCain quotes; he's a complete freak; and he also has twenty houses. A fringe benefit is he's laid off a significant portion of the electorate. Of course, if we really want to dream, we can hope for Lieberman. But of those two, I'd say Romney.
What say you?
Late Update: Intrade seems to have little doubt it's Pawlenty.
In honor of Tim's possible coronation, here's our famed Tim Pawlenty, wake me when he's done, clip reel ...
--Josh Marshall
What About the Balloons?
It just occurred to me: Can you have the traditional final convention night balloon drop at an outdoor venue?
Late Update: Seems we have an answer -- jmm.
--David Kurtz
Worst Line of the Convention
Rep. John Salazar (D-CO): "I've been a farmer all my life and when I look out on this crowd I see a silo of hope."
--David Kurtz
Emergency Room Paradise Update
Jon Cohn has continued to follow the saga of John Goodman, the McCain health care policy advisor, who has said that the ability to go to an emergency room is as good as having health insurance.
First, the McCain camp denied that Goodman was an advisor. Then, after being confronted with evidence to the contrary, they went on to issue what amounts to a non-denial denial and a repudiation of Goodman's emergency room statement. Here's the statement to Cohn in its entirety ...
Mr. Goodman volunteered his advice to the campaign in the past. However, his philosophy on health care--and especially on the urgency of the problems faced by 45 million uninsured American's--are clearly out of step with John McCain. Earlier this summer the campaign informed Mr. Goodman that his advice was not required and requested that he not identify himself as being associated with the campaign in any way, including as a volunteer. John McCain could not disagree more strongly with Mr. Goodman. John McCain believes that addressing the problem of the nation's uninsured is one of our most pressing national priorities. That's why the McCain health plan will, for the first time, bring health coverage within reach of every American.
Count me as highly skeptical. He's repeatedly been cited as an advisor. And as I said below, I don't think that citation gets put on a WSJ editorial without the campaign's consent, tacit or explicit. Also note that according to Jason Roberson, a business reporter for the Dallas Morning News, Goodman told the DMN that "he helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy."
Clearly, the McCain campaign wants this guy thrown overboard ASAP. But the sketchy nature of the McCain campaign's denial makes it clear that he was an advisor of some sort. And the citation in the WSJ, again, makes the denial highly dubious. More significantly, as Cohn notes in his reporting, the idea that Goodman's views are not in line with McCain's policy proposals is just not true to anyone who is well-versed in health care policy. They're actually right in line. As Jon notes, the problem is that Goodman stated explicitly what is implicit in McCain's plan, and that of other health care policy proposals that define the 'problem' in the health care debate as people having too much insurance coverage.
And what about Goodman saying he helped write the policy? Was he lying? Let's have a bit more on that.
--Josh Marshall
Let's Get The Show on the Road
Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the convention to order. Most of the delegates have taken their seats on the field now. The stadium is filling up.
If it wasn't obvious yet from the banal observations of this post, this is mostly a long afternoon of waiting for the main event.
I really don't envy the TV guys who have to fill all this airtime.
Late Update: No Bruce Springsteen and no Bon Jovi. They'd been reported to be among the performers slated for the evening. Instead we have Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, will.i.am, and Michael McDonald. This is devastating news for TPMtv's Ben Craw.
--David Kurtz
Stickin!
TPM reporters score prime Invesco field press seats, pledge to die before relinquishing them.
--Josh Marshall
McSame Agonistes
Times to report Bush and sidekick haven't spoken since May.
Hmmm, wonder who would leak to the Times that McCain and Bush aren't chummy anymore? Have to put on my thinking cap for that one.
(ed.note: Alternative title for this post "Exile in Sidekickville".)
--Josh Marshall
Invesco Insanity
Ben Craw and I just arrived at Invesco Field in Denver, site of tonight's acceptance speech by Barack Obama. We were lucky enough to have grabbed the last couple of seats available in the press box.
An hour before the day's official convention schedule kicks off -- and six hours before Obama is scheduled to speak -- a scattering of people are already in their seats above the field. Delegates are filing in. They are seated on the field itself. It's a bright, sunny, not-too-warm day here, but that's a long time to be baking in the sun.
I hate to even comment on the set prepared for Obama for his speech. The ridiculous right wing meme that the set is a Greek temple to Obama is too mindless to deserve comment. The set looks like nothing so much as the East Colonnade of the White House.
The demand for press access to this event is so great that we're apprehensive about losing our seats here in the press box. We have seats available in the stadium itself as well as some access to the field itself.
We'll be bringing you reports as we are able, including video as the day unfolds.
--David Kurtz
Not Your Advisor? Please.
We've yet to have the McCain campaign return our calls about campaign advisor John Goodman's suggestion that everyone in the USA actually does have health care insurance in the form of access to emergency rooms where no one in need of immediate medical care can be turned away. But they're now telling TNR's Jon Cohn that he's actually not a McCain advisor.
Really?
Needless to say, we did some looking around before we put up our feature story.
On August 18th, the Dallas Morning News referred to Goodman as "a health policy adviser to McCain's campaign." Yesterday, on the 27th, they referred to Goodman as a McCain advisor "who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy."
Policy wonks can sometimes puff themselves up by giving people the impression they are advisors. Or a paper can get it wrong. But much more telling is the July 30th OpEd Goodman wrote (sub.req.) in the Wall Street Journal in which he is identified as "an unpaid adviser to the McCain campaign."
Given the Journal's role as the forum of record for statements of Republican campaigns and Republican policy wonks, there's simply no way that representation did not have the McCain campaign's sign-off.
I'm still curious to know more about what role he played in crafting McCain's health care plan. As the Journal states, he is an unpaid advisor rather than a member of the campaign staff. And I have no doubt they now don't want him as a named advisor. On that I don't need convincing. But I'm afraid, just saying he's not an advisor won't cut it. Absent some good explanation of why he has repeatedly been identified in the press as a McCain advisor, he and his claims about emergency rooms as de facto health care insurance are all theirs.
Late Update: My old friend Jon Cohn doesn't like getting fibbed to by the McCain camp. Jon got in touch with the reporter from the DMN who has the goods.
--Josh Marshall
Victim Complex
Karl Rove: Hurricanes like Katrina and Gustav just won't give us Republicans a break.
--Greg Sargent
Surrogate POW-POW-POW
New South Carolina GOP ad focuses exclusively on McCain's POW past as response to criticism of number-of-houses flub.
--Greg Sargent
Dog Town U.S.A.
Life expectancy has to be higher here in Denver. Everyone is lean and fit and looks like they just finished mountain biking, are on their way to yoga class, and might end the day with a run.
The other striking thing about the city is the number of dogs. There must be a city ordinance requiring all residents to own at least one dog. I'm not talking roving bands of stray dogs here, just everyone on the street with a leash in hand, and dogs that look very accustomed to hanging out in coffee shops, chilling in the shade of sidewalk cafes, and in general being part of the life of the city.
--David Kurtz
TPMtv: Obama's Big Night
We recap Day 3 in Denver and look ahead to what is likely to be complete chaos tonight for Obama's acceptance speech at 75,000-seat Invesco Field:
Full-size video at TPMtv.com.
This is our last TPMtv episode from Denver so it's a good time to ask you for your feedback. Today's show was shot using our standard camera and upload process, but for much of the week, as I hope you've seen, we've been experimenting with using a camera phone and streaming video live or almost live via qik.com. We want to know how you liked those videos: Was the low resolution annoying? Did the speed and immediacy of the videos make up for the lower video quality? Was the content of the videos themselves what you were looking for?
We're very excited about the potential for this new technology and what it allows us to do, so we're very interested in hearing from you about this week's experiment -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.
--David Kurtz
Katrina's Little Brother
MSNBC just noted that with Gustav likely to hit the Gulf Coast next week this could be a "split-screen convention" for the Republicans.
A Gulf Coast hurricane disrupting the GOP's messaging during convention week -- three years after Katrina hit (the anniversary is tomorrow) -- the irony would be enough to make my head explode.
--David Kurtz
Obama: We're Better Than The Last 8 Years
Sen. Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president.
- Gore: Let's Get It Right This Time
- VA Gov. Kaine: Have Faith, Reject McCain
- Rep. Lewis: "We Still Have A Dream"
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- Fox: Bush May Skip RNC Because Of Storm
- Ratings Dip To 24 Million On Day 3
- Michelle To Women's Caucus: Watch My Back
- US: 100 Militants Killed In Afghanistan
- Marine Found Not Guilty In Fallujah Deaths
- Professor Abramoff? Teaches Cinema Studies In Prison
- New Orleans Bracing For Tropical Storm Gustav
- U.S. Arrests Top Iraqi Official On Bombing Suspicion
- Bush Admin Worries About Codifying Afghan Rules
- Report: Contracting Budget In Iraq To Exceed $1.2B In 2008
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