Obama rocks the house in Charlotte
“He just blew Clinton right off of the podium,” said former Republican Mary Clogginstein of Brattleboro, Vermont.
Former Republican and average housewife Mary Clogginstein says President’s speech will win over all undecideds and moderates.
After a week of amazing, awesome, and completely brilliant speeches, the speech to top was former President Bill Clinton’s on Wednesday night. The speech, in the words of Slate’s John Dickerson, was “a touch act for Obama to follow”.
For the last five minutes of the speech, everyone in the auditorium stood to let his words fall on their faces. Clinton seemed to delight in the whole event, luxuriating in the speech like it was a vast terrycloth robe.
As of Thursday night, Clinton has passed the torch to Obama as the blackest president ever to speechify in the house. The grand symphony of words evoked optimism without cluelessness. If the crowd last night was a living, breathing, organism, tonight it was a haloed chorus of angels radiant at the altar of America’s savior. As commentator Chris Matthews wrote, “I felt the light of heaven radiating down my legs listening to it. It was a double rainbow of speechification. Oooh.”
President Obama cut the speech deficit in half in one fell swoon. One crowd, one hall, one speech, one swoon.
And that was just from the press corps. Out in real undecided America, the President’s radiant speech lit up the people he’ll need to win the election. Former Republican and housewife from Vermont, Mary Clogginstein, said that President Obama “just blew Clinton right off the podium. This speech has swayed all of the moderates and undecideds I know; they now believe in Obama again like they did in 2008.”
We heard the same in surveys across the political spectrum, from D+3 to D+9, that the President’s likability gap has been bridged, the railroads of our own failures to understand his magnificence have been reforged. The President’s speech has shaken the vast mainstream middle class out of their GOP-inspired, Tea Party influenced doldrums. The mainstream of America, no longer clinging to outdated notions of American exceptionalism, recognizes a new exceptional American, and that man is Barack Obama.
Last night, ex-President Clinton shamed the GOP for their inattentiveness to their own history. Tonight, President of the Now Barack Obama shamed Bill Clinton; rhetoric that last night sounded like lightning now seems more jackhammers compared to the subtle nuancies of a true master orator. Obama didn’t just instruct us, didn’t just convince us, he wooed us as lovers woo in the midnight hour of our need. Moderates who once supported President Clinton heard what an improvement their new president is. Yesterday, Clinton was the black father we always wished we had; Tonight, Obama was our beautiful brofriend.
- Bill Clinton: A tough act for Obama to follow: John Dickerson
- “Clinton has now spoken for a total of more than five hours at Democratic conventions. It seemed at times that he was in the middle of a five-hour speech Wednesday night. The crowd of delegates and party stalwarts didn’t seem to mind. For the last five minutes of the speech, everyone in the auditorium stood to let his words fall on their faces. Clinton seemed to delight in the whole event, luxuriating in the speech like it was a vast terrycloth robe.”
- The Clinton factor: John Hayward
- “Listening to him ramble on stage Wednesday night about the impossible challenge of cleaning up after George Bush, you could almost forget the Bill Clinton left Bush a recession, too—which Bush addressed without Obama’s endless whining and sniveling, in addition to coping with a devastating terrorist attack that inflicted a trillion dollars of economic damage.”
- Floor fight cover up: how Politico buried and disappeared a scoop damaging to Obama: John Nolte at Big Journalism
- “Now you have to imagine that you’re a real honest-to-goodness reporter in the middle of the biggest story of the convention and holding in your hot little hands the news that the furious spin spinning all around you is probably false. What do you do?”
- Lapdog poetry: Rick Klein gushes over Bill Clinton with junior high-worthy verse at Twitchy
- “this speech was a living, breathing organism. the crowd, the hall, the speech, one.”
Omar decries “White Hate”: In the wake of anti-white violence by a Muslim shooter in Denver, Representative Ilhan Omar begins campaign to “stand together to stop white hate.” (read more…)
The Walkerville Weekly Reader apologizes for releasing this editorial before the speech was given. But let’s face it, we already know how awesome that speech will be.