Okay, so Tuesday morning, I was contemplating watching college football openers on Thursday night. I still am. Tuesday’s convention evening was better than Monday’s but still way too much talking heads and not enough convention coverage for me.
Wednesday night was equally disappointing. I realize that I live on the East coast. I cannot think that everything is going to be on television live at a time when I want to see it. I was, though, excited to hear both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. One was at a wonderful time for East coast watching, another not so much.
Bill Clinton’s time slot of just after 9 pm EDT was perfect. It may have felt like a slight insult to a former president, especially one of the only two term Democratic presidents in decades. The live coverage was not prime time coverage onsite, being only 7 pm CDT – or is Denver in Mountain time? Anyway, it was a good time for those of us on the East coast that do not stay up until all hours for political news.
On top of the time slot being a slight insult, giving Bill Clinton a ten minute time slot is downright stupid. On top of being a former president – which regardless of your views of his administration or his personal life should demand a certain amount of respect within party politics and from party faithful, he is a great orator. He has electrified conventions many times in the past. Let the man speak. And, probably much to the detriment of vice presidential nominee, Clinton did speak and much longer than his ten minutes.
Clinton gave the speech of his life. He did a better job endorsing, straight out, Barack Obama than his wife did the night before. He did a fantastic job of pointing out where the Bush administration of the last eight years as gone wrong because it is his legacy that they have destroyed according to Clinton. The speech allowed him to point out that the only way to get back to the prosperity of the 90′s, prosperity that his administration created - and I do realize that prosperity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder – is to put Barack Obama in the White House. Clinton went so far as to say, and rightfully so, that Obama has as much experience now as he did should Obama win. He went so far as to say, and rightfully so, that Obama was told pretty much the same things as Clinton was prior to starting his run.
While Clinton may have felt it was detrimental to his speech to follow Hillary’s Tuesday speech, Obama was probably much happier with Bill than with Hill.
The most moving part, to date, of the convention came when Captain Beau Biden, also the Attorney General for the state of Delaware, came on stage to introduce his father. Though all listening may not have understood, Beau Biden is a captain in the Delaware National Guard. He ships out in the next few weeks for a one year tour of duty in Iraq. The McCain campaign will need to tread carefully on its war remarks with an Obama-Biden ticket with Biden’s son on the front lines.
Beau Biden brought the Pepsi Arena to its feet. He also brought the arena to tears as he discussed his father’s and his family’s past tragedies, his family’s marriage to his stepmother Jill, and his inability – after his father put everything on hold for his children and then commuted to Washington, DC to take on the Senate seat he has been elected to six times – to be at his father’s side for this campaign.
By the time Beau Biden was done and his father took the stage for his acceptance speech, I was dozing off, probably a combination of the time and the late night on Tuesday. I heard bits and pieces of Joe Biden’s speech. I saw him introduce his mother. I heard him introduce and describe his wife. For a woman with a doctorate in education, Jill Biden needs to teach him some more politically correct ways to discuss his wife. I am sick of hearing how good looking she is – not jealous, just sick of hearing it.
I heard Joe Biden discuss his friendship with John McCain. Then, just when it looked like the speech was going to take a wrong turn, Biden did the one thing that Obama has yet to do – get down and dirty. He dug into where McCain is wrong and where four more years of Republican rule will get this country.
All in all, a good night for the Democrats in attendance and a better night – though still not perfect in my mind – for television coverage.
