Notes on the Democratic Convention 2008

" I like the dreams of the future better than the histories of the past" ~ Thomas Jefferson

 For the Turkish Expatriate, to bring a little of the Convention to Istanbul:

I feel like it's been an election year for the past eighteen months. But here we are at the Democratic Convention in Denver. Well,  I'm not in Denver. I'm sitting in my living room in Kansas City  (that's Kansas City, not St. Louis, Mr. Obama) watching Denver on T.V. But I have a commonplace book and I'm not afraid to use it, so here are my notes from day two of the Convention. Some of them are notes, like you'd take notes on a lecture, some of them are notes on the speaking styles of the speakers (because I can use words like diction and syntax).

 Also, I apologize for the lack of proofreading, these were typed up rather late at night, so there are too many pronouns, run on sentences, and lots of passive voice. 

 

 

Apparently Kathleen Sebelious' speech doesn't get aired on Kansas City television (gee, I don't know why in the world we'd want to hear our governor speak at a national convention), so I got to listen to the commentators for a good fifteen minutes.
According to them: Mark Warner's  (former Governor of Virginia --> they air the former Governor of Virginia in KC, but not Our Governor...sorry, I'm not bitter) role as the keynote speaker is traditionally, and I quote: "to peel the skin off the other candidate." However, because Warner is a more centrist kind of guy they expect him to focus on balancing the already rather leftist convention, by ...well... letting McCain keep his skin. Apparently he made millions in the early cell phone industry which is beneficial because economy has never been the Democrats strong point. (One of the commentators made a self-deprecating crack about there having never been a democrat with a strong economic policy... I wonder if he's ever heard of the New Deal.) They disagreed about whether this more centrist keynote speaker will benefit the campaign. Some commentators thought that the Democrats need a centrist to pull in independent voters and that Clinton will be able to any necessary skin peeling later in the evening, but others felt that the convention had so far lack a battle cry and a good partisan keynote speaker would had been able to give something to rally around. They did agree on the importance of the other main speaker tonight: Senator Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania. His speech apparently will help Obama get two major swing blocks of voters: Pennsylvanians and Catholics (...and presumably Catholics from Pennsylvania, but I don't think polls ever get that specific). Also although he has been a exuberant  yes-man for Obama, they disagree on abortion, so for Obama to have granted Casey this speaking slot is a huge show of goodwill and moderation (especially considering the same slot was denied to Casey's father in the previous convention because of the abortion disagreement). Finally the commentators noted that Obama is unique in the fact that he is among the few truly charismatic Democrats of late.                                    

And now for something completely different.... actually politicians

 

( Sen. Bob Casey (Pennsylvania)  )

 Mark Warner (former Gov. of Virginia)

( Mark Warner (Gov. of Virginia)  )

…And now the one we’ve all been waiting for… 

( Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton (New York)  )

The commentators loved her, said she hit all the necessary points and “electrified the crowd.” I didn’t see it. She praised Obama only as a Democrat, not as a good potential president, and all but declared her candidacy for 2012. Regardless, it is something incredible that she was up there at all. I think my namesake would be proud, and if that's good enough for George Sand, it's good enough for me. 

I remain,
Georgie

 

P.S. I'll try to get days three and four up tomorrow, but I am not promising anything