Democratic Convention Day Four: OBAMA-THON! "Now Is The Time"

In its leadup Barack Obama39s acceptance speech was perhaps the most highly anticipated in modern Democratic Convention history With it the torch formally passed to Barack Obama from the Clintons Overall the fourday convention contrary to the caterwauling of Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel was an exuberant affair watched by over 20M Americans and that39s just on the telly As in the first three days last night had a theme Change You Can Believe In allowing for stagecraft that leveraged Obama39s celebrity connections with performances by the likes of Stevie Wonder Sheryl Crow John Legend and william and Michael McDonald to complement the hardhitting substantive speechesFalling on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King39s I Have A Dream speech Obama39s acceptance was preceded by a tribute to Dr King that was introduced by civil rights icon Rep John Lewis the Rev Bernice King and Martin Luther King III Check your party designation at the door it raised goosebumpsTaking a page from Sen Kerry Bill Richardson for a change made me sit up and take note Given his burnished resume and foreign policy experience perhaps if he had been this tough during the primaries he might have nailed the VP nom Richardson made explicit and welcome statements about the abuses of the White House demanding that we quotStop Spying on Americansquot stop torture and close Guantanamo He also launched the evening39s bloodsport piercing the Myth of the Maverick John McCain as simply more of the same The speech is only eight minutes long but packs a punch Al Gore was grown so much as a public speaker since the 2000 campaign The robot that refused to have Bill Clinton campaign on his behalf has clearly found his life39s work fighting Global Warming His lectures and film An Inconvenient Truth have turned out to be prophetic Even the world39s leading climatologist Jim Hansen thinks that he was ahead of the curve Following Richardson39s lead Vice President Gore spoke of the failure of BushCheney policies and how John McCain was in lockstep with virtually all of them His coy applause line worked mostly quotI believe in recycling but that39s ridiculousquot For close to an hour Gore gave a disciplined address equally about his strong suit the environment But will he be out on the campaign trail now that McCain39s picked a VP who believes in drilling and in her own backyardThe Main Event A crowd of close to 80000 sprawled across Invesco Field to hear Barack Obama39s acceptance address The 2004 keynoter has moved at light speed from State Senator to Illinois Senator to Democratic nominee in a few short years Could he deliver in his speech the aptly entitled quotThe American PromisequotThe DNC is to be lauded for the editorial discipline of the convention Without being repetitive each of the major speeches dovetailed and echoed one another Obama39s oratory had its usual flourishes of soaring rhetoric while at the same time taking McCain to task quotWhat39s it say when you think that George Bush was right 90 of the timequot Today WNYC39s Brian Lehrer had clinical psychologist Paul Ekman deconstruct the facial verbal and body cues of the candidates including this speech where he found Obama managing toughness without anger punctuated in his remarks with quotEight is enoughquot referring to the Bush two terms Two other direct hits quotJohn McCain likes to say that he39ll follow Osama Bin Ladin to the Gates of Hell when he won39t even follow him into the cave he lives inquot and quotI got news for you John McCain we ALL put our country firstquot The nominee effortlessly moved from the abstract to the concrete Obama39s pledge to end our dependence on foreign oil in ten years To offer tax cuts to 95 of the public ending capital gains taxes for small business ownersImportantly for the tone of the campaign itself Obama sought postpartisan common ground explicitly calling out that we can have a civil discourse on hotbutton issues including abortion gun rights civil unions and immigration Perhaps Obama39s greatest applause line of the evening spun off of his argument for equal pay which McCain has consistently voted against quotI want my daughters to have the same exact opportunities as your sonsquotIt was as though Peggy quotThousand Points of Lightquot Noonan had switched parties and picked up her pen bringing a muscular idealism to the fore David Gergen perhaps the most downthemiddle pundit with authority in front of a cable news mic today wasn39t stinting with his praise quotIt was less a speech than a symphony As a political speech it was a masterpiecequot Text of the speech hereHappy 72nd Birthday John McCain An hour ago McCain introduced Alaskan Gov Sarah Palin to the American public She was a wildcard choice and for this the Senator deserves our praise Romney did look like a shoein but guess who wants those 18M Hillary Clinton votes Good luck with that In many ways Palin is the Maverick John McCain was once Her record on fighting corruption mostly within her own party is impressive Nicknamed quotSarah Barracudaquot when she was a star high school basketball player Palin39s youth and competitive streak will be an asset to the campaign Fred Barnes39 July Weekly Standard profile hereThere39s an outside chance that the Republican Convention next week might be postponed due to Hurricane Gustav Weathercom is tracking the storm here

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Democratic Convention Day Four: OBAMA-THON! "Now Is The Time"

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Jerry Weinstein

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

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Democratic Convention Day Four: OBAMA-THON! "Now Is The Time"

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Jerry Weinstein

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

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