Wednesday night was the Democrats best night of the convention by far...and that's very good news for Republicans.
The star of the show, of course, was Bill Clinton, who actually gave two speeches.
He closed with the stronger one, namely that the GOP doesn't deserve to be rewarded for the past 8 years. That argument works because it's fundamentally true in many ways.
But he began with a speech endorsing Barack Obama, and that was, well, embarrassing.
Bill Clinton essentially argued "Barack is the right man for the job because I used to have that job, and I say so." Arguing from authority isn't entirely useless, but it ain't much.
Sure, Bill Clinton said "Barack Obama is ready to be president." But he also said "I did not have sex with that woman...." So consider the source. Now compare the second half of the speech — full of arguments, facts, statistics and examples — against the Obama endorsement. The weakness is glaring. I've always considered Bill Clinton's biggest strength as a communicator his ability to connect what he wants you to believe to what you already know and believe. That's good arguing, in the debate club sense.
What he showed tonight is that even one of the best salesmen in the Democratic Party can't make the case for President Obama. And has anyone else noticed that, when Democrats talk about the economy, it's always lousy? Yes, the economy certainly feels lousy to many Americans and it really is lousy for too many Americans.
But didn't Bill Clinton and the Kerry supporters say exactly the same things Bill is saying tonight back in 2004 — when the economy was growing, unemployment falling, the housing market was red hot, etc.
Apparently, the only way to get Democrats to say something good about the economy is to elect other Democrats. Regardless, Bill Clinton had the same problem Hillary did last night. Making the case for NOT voting for McCain is much easier the offering reasons to vote for Barack Obama. The low point of the night was, without question, the whiny, self-serving speech by our own Sen. John Kerry. For some reason, the Democrats decided to send Kerry out to defend the patriotism of their party. Which is kind of like sending out Bill Clinton to defend your chastity.
John Kerry returned from Vietnam to trash — falsely — his fellow soldiers as murderers, rapists and war criminals. He used that disgraceful performance to launch his career. Then he proceeded to get virtually every major national security issue wrong.
He supported appeasement of the Soviets and opposed the Reagan policies that brought down the Berlin Wall.
He opposed the Reagan Doctrine and thought Communism should be allowed to spread, unchallenged, in Central America.
He opposed SDI, was a roadblock to increased intelligence activity in the '90s and insisted that terrorism was a law-and-order issue even after 9/11.
Now he says nobody has the right to define patriotism. Probably because it's very difficult to find a definition that includes the behavior of John Kerry in the 1970s. I think the smartest speech of the night was Sen. Joe Biden's. I'll admit a pro-Biden bias. I re-read Biden's autobiography on the flight from Boston to Denver and the story of what happened to his family weeks after his election to the Senate is riveting. His reaction — willing to abandon his US Senate seat to care for his sons — is what I would hope to be brave enough to do as a father.
I'm not a fan of his politics or pomposity, but on behalf of dads everywhere, Joe Biden has my unshakable respect.
What made his speech smart was that Joe Biden made a case, an argument, and did so while making a connection to Reagan Democrats. And the strategy of attacking McCain's judgment on foreign policy is smart, too. Going point by point arguing that Sen. Obama was right and McCain wrong on security issues could help close Obama's "Commander-In-Chief" gap. But notice that Sen. Biden didn't--and couldn't--mention the biggest foreign policy decision since Obama's been in the US Senate: the surge.
I hope the McCain VP picks up this fight, and takes it apart example by example. The idea that agreeing to a withdrawal date from Iraq WHILE YOU'RE LOSING is the same as winning the war and then picking a date to leave is absurd.
Biden's trying to defend the Defeat Party. He's given McCain the chance to point out he's leading the Victory Party.
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