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The Democratic Convention, Day 3 and 4
Thursday, 2004 July 29 - 12:18 am
The new slogans: "Stronger at Home, Respected in the World"; "America Can Do Better"; "Hope/Help Is On the Way".

Well, the convention is all wrapped up now.

Wednesday's highlight was obviously John Edwards' speech. We had high hopes for him; during the campaign, we saw a lot of his ability to deliver a message with charisma and optimism. I think he did a reasonably good job, though there were parts that just seemed like ol' fancy lawyerin'. He was at his best near the end, with the "hope is on the way" theme; he was a bit weak with the clumsy interjection about hunting down terrorists. (John, leave that bit for the war hero, and just stick to the folksy stuff.)

On Thursday, we really started to see the war-hero theme get hammered. Trotting out Kerry's whole boat crew from the Vietnam War, and then capping things off with triple amputee Max Cleland, was a nice touch. I'm actually starting to like this strategy, sneaky though it may be. There's no way Bush can touch even question Kerry's service record, given his own spotty past.

John Kerry himself gave a solid speech. The phraseology was good and the delivery was good (save for a couple of flubs, like the bit about special forces "conducting terrorist operations... er, anti-terrorist operations"). I do have the same literary criticism about his speech as I have about most of the other speeches: it tended to drift from theme to theme. I think it would be more effective to talk in-depth about each theme individually and tie things together in a big splash at the end, rather than trying to sprinkle the whole speech with mini-conclusions. Comedians seem to have a knack for this, oddly enough; perhaps we need Jerry Seinfeld to write political speeches.

While repeating policy ideas introduced in Edwards' speech, Kerry also managed to come across as passionate and truly patriotic. From the campaign video (narrated by "I-played-the-President-in-movies" Morgan Freeman), we see that Democrats are eager to portray Kerry as someone who is running for office based on ideals, hope, and the desire for unity, and not for power, glory, or wealth. I have to applaud whoever crafted this strategy and put together the convention; nearly every speaker and every video clip stayed on-message. The word that's being floated around is "tightly choreographed". I think that's an adequate depiction, even with its potentially negative connotations. Republicans will attack the convention based on this, but they're also going to be afraid of how effective the choreography can be.

What I liked most about Kerry's speech were his answers to Republican campaign themes. He turned the tables on the Republicans who accuse Democrats of being "pessimists", by pointing out that it's not pessimistic to believe we can do better. He flatly rebutted the notion that he would raise taxes across the board, by promising to lower taxes for the middle class. And he made a point that I wish Democrats would make more often: that Republicans have absolutely no right to call themselves more patriotic than everyone else.

The surprise of the night: Alexandra Kerry's convincingly heartfelt testimonial to her father. Her speech was tightly focused and flowed smoothly from one section to the next. That was a stark contrast to the "jump around and try to touch all the bases" style of most of the other speakers, including the candidates themselves. Unfortunately, Alexandra will never be completely taken seriously, because her boobs are plastered all over the internet.
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Posted by Ken in: politics

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