August 26, 2008

8/26: Netroots To Dems: Get Nastier!

Liberal bloggers are giving Michelle Obama positive reviews for her speech at the DNC. Arianna Huffington calls the speech "a home run" while Steve Benen predicts that it will "eras[e] any doubts about her love of country." Conservative bloggers, naturally, are less kind. While most righty bloggers are praising Michelle's delivery, they're also calling the speech "a bit phony" and arguing that it obscured the fact that Michelle is really "a radical, elitist, liberal with a dislike for her own country".

Although liberal bloggers liked Michelle's speech (as well as Ted Kennedy's), many were critical of the night overall. Liberal bloggers were particularly frustrated by the paucity of attacks on John McCain and George W. Bush. The netroots are concerned that Dems are repeating the mistakes of 2004, when the DNC organizers took it easy on Bush and focused on building up John Kerry, only to have Kerry torn apart weeks later at the RNC. While the netroots recognize the importance of making a positive case for Barack Obama and introducing him and his family to the broader electorate, they believe that it's crucial to put McCain on the defensive. They also believe that making a strong case against McCain is the most effective way to get disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters fully on board. Josh Marshall writes:

"If this [convention] is about the Hillary forces and Obama forces each analyzing each other's actions, endlessly ad infinitum, there's no chance the Democrats are going to do better than just get along. Where these two sides are really going to come together is over making the case against John McCain. He's the clear and present danger."

OBAMA: A Home Run For Michelle?

Liberal bloggers praised Michelle Obama's speech:

• Arianna Huffington: "Michelle's speech was a home run. Emotional, heartfelt, and very authentic."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "Amazing speech, delivery was even better."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "[Michelle's] speech was good. The family exchange at the end was fan-friggin'-tastic. That was really awesome. More like that."
• The Washington Monthly's Benen: "I suspect the original goal of Michelle's speech was to help humanize her husband, but she ended up going much further, telling an amazing American story, and one hopes, erasing any doubts about her love of country. She wasn't just good, and she didn't just exceed expectations, Michelle Obama couldn't have been any better. Remember the image of the scary, machine-gun toting woman on the cover of the New Yorker? Yeah, that's gone now."
• Mark Kleiman: "I'm about the least sentimental person I know, but I choked up listening to Michelle Obama's speech. Even the Republican talking heads can't find a bad word to say about her. Bill Schneider is talking about this as the first speech of Michelle's future political career. And the shout-out to Hillary was inspired. All the folks who have been slagging her for the past four months are now looking like a bunch of liars. The hostile, 'entitled' black nationalist they've been describing was simply not in evidence."
• Ezra Klein: "Michelle Obama is giving a beautifully delivered, and smartly crafted, speech. [...] She's also coming off as wholesome and, frankly, familiar. She just brought the crowd to its feet with an emotionally delivered 'and that is why I love this country.' Her inflection is soft and steady. The end of every sentence drops in volume, robbing it of aggression, giving it a empathic, almost quavering, cadence. She's really knocking it out of the park."

Daily Kos' georgia10: "The ads that McCain is running throughout the country attempt to paint Barack Obama is an ulta-radical, dangerous liberal who's secretly a commie/Muslim/babykiller/insertyoursmearhere. Tonight, from Michelle's rousing speech to the Obama children say[ing] hi to their dad to the countless anecdotes in between -- they all serve to introduce this family to America. There's no better rebuttal to the McCain smears than to have the Obamas speak directly to voters, showing in their simplest of gestures, like a smile to daddy on the big screen, to the most stirring of speeches that this is an all-American family that loves this country as much as they love each other."

OBAMA II: That Wasn't The Michelle We Know...

While conservative bloggers praised Michelle Obama's delivery of her speech, they believe that the content of the speech obscured her true character:

• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "Michelle's speech was her attempt to trick people into believing she's not a radical, elitist, liberal with a dislike for her own country and it was good for what it was."
• NRO's Lisa Schiffren: "Michelle hit the ball out of the park, I could not help thinking. The speechwriter did a brilliant job, given the task at hand, which was to make a somewhat unpleasant, maybe angry woman seem like a nicer version of the mom next door -- wherever you live. If one did not know all that one knows about her, her thoughts about the country, her religious choices, etc...why you'd want her to be your BFF. I would."
• NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru: "Michelle Obama did not seem aggrieved, entitled, whiny, extreme, unpatriotic, or even particularly liberal. She didn't sound anything like the off-the-cuff Michelle Obama we have come to know. The speech was well-crafted to achieve its goals, and she delivered it well."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Ms. Obama's make-over was more extreme when it came to her account of her life. We saw her growing up on the South Side of Chicago with her family (including Princeton basketball legend 'Super Craig' Robinson, now the basketball coach at Oregon State); we saw her fleeing corporate America to 'serve her community;' and we saw her and Barack with their small children. We did not see her at the Ivy League institutions where she spent seven years of her life (four at Princeton and three at Harvard Law School). In tonight's account, she was merely 'able to go on to college.' Nor, of course, do we learn just how well Ms. Obama is doing financially by 'doing good' in her community. Plainly, Ms. Obama wishes to be viewed as an 'ordinary' American. To the extent that her real biography is known, or emerges over the course of the campaign, some voters may conclude she was a bit phony tonight."
• RedState's Mark Impomeni: "[Michelle] Obama came out to thunderous applause and proceeded to begin talking about: herself, her family, her mother, her father, her kids, her job, her leaving her job, her hopes for the future, her policy proposals, her love for the country, her, her, her. Sen. Obama, the nominee, was almost nowhere present in this speech, except for when his wife was making it quite clear that he has a lot to live up to in her dad, or when she was dragging him along for the ride on her litany of beliefs. There were a lot of 'I's' and not nearly enough 'he's.' Halfway through the speech, one wondered just who is running for president, Michelle or Barack."

NRO's Jim Geraghty issues a warning to Dems: "There was little to object to in last night's speech. She looked stunning, her speech was sunny mush, and her children were the cutest brood this side of the Huxtables. [...] But sooner or later, Michelle is very likely to return to her 'traditional' rhetoric on the campaign trail. She's going to start painting a dire, gloomy picture of an America where the working class is squashed and dreams are crushed by the powerful on a daily basis. And when it does, it will provide an opportunity for Obama opponents to argue, 'That nice woman you saw in Denver is the mask. The real Michelle is the woman who is only now proud of her country, and who thinks it is usually "just downright mean."'"

OBAMA III: Why Aren't We Hitting McCain?

Many liberal bloggers were concerned about the paucity of attacks on McCain and Bush during the first night of the DNC:

• Bowers: "Other than Pelosi's less than convincing 'John McCain is wrong' call and response, do we have any plans to attack John McCain during this convention? I haven't heard any of it so far. It would be a massive waste of an opportunity if we don't really open up on him in this election."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "If a glove was laid upon McCain and the Republicans [last night], I did not see it."
• TPM's Marshall: "Thought we had some great speeches tonight. But I did not hear much about President Bush or John McCain. Maybe this wasn't the night for it. Maybe this was Kennedy and Michelle Obama. But they need to go there. [...] I just need to know it's coming and that -- even if mainly in the hands of surrogates -- it won't stop until election day. Listen to [Paul] Begala. It's not about responding quickly to the attacks. It's about making McCain respond to Democrats' attacks."

Along that same vein, many liberal bloggers praised MO Sen. Claire McCaskill for attacking McCain in her speech:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Somewhat incredibly, I've been watching the Democratic Convention for something like three hours now and I think Claire McCaskill who just finished was the first speaker who actually took some time to make an argument against John McCain. I understand that the theory of the day is that Democrats want to introduce people to Barack Obama, but it seems to me that viable political parties figure out how to walk and chew gum at the same time -- it's hardly impossible to work a few digs at the other guy into a talk that's mostly about the virtues of your candidate."
• TAPPED's Sam Boyd: "From my perspective Claire McCaskill is knocking this out of the park. Rather than vague statements about how Obama is, like, totally awesome, she's saying McCain would be a bad president. Doesn't sound like much, but no one else is doing it. 'Change' as a message is meaningless without any argument about, you know, why we need it. McCaskill, unlike so many other people out there tonight, is making that argument and arguing that McCain represents part of the problem not the solution. It's not an artful speech or particularly well-delivered, but it actually makes sense logically, and that makes up for a lot."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan doesn't believe that the Dems erred by not attacking Bush and McCain last night: "The notion that tonight should have been about ripping the bark off the president seems to me misplaced. No one needs to be persuaded that the country is on the wrong track. We have endured one of the worst presidencies in American history, a stalling economy, and a war that was as deceptively packaged as it was poorly executed. The wrong track number is at 80 percent. What was necessary tonight was rebutting the only real weapon the Republicans have: dragging Obama into the mud, throwing every extremist attack they can at him, painting him as a commie, alien, anti-American freak. For good measure, they had tried to paint Michelle as an angry black radical. They failed. There was nothing more American than the way the Obamas spoke of their story. It made them more appealing to the white working class and the black working class. It defused the smears."

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas agrees with Sullivan: "For those of us who were born in the combative blogosphere, we're pretty much happy with how the first night panned out. Why? Perhaps because being close to the ground, we understand that the problem the Obamas have is not that the country thinks things are peachy. 80 percent of Americans think the country is headed the wrong direction, and Bush and Congressional Republicans are getting the lion's share of the blame. It's true that McCain is trying to use his 'maverick' status to distance himself from his party, but piercing that fabrication isn't the Obamas biggest problem. No, the biggest problem they face is the b.s. about them not being real Americans -- that he is foreign and muslim, that she is an angry black radical, that they don't 'look' how a First Family should look. And so Obama's team set out to diffuse those fears on the first night. [...] There are three more days of convention. We don't have to beat up on Republicans all four nights. The anti-GOP case has already been made by Bush and his enablers over the past eight years. There are two tasks left -- to show American the Obamas are, well, real Americans, and to tie McCain to the GOP. The former has now been accomplished. I suspect today and tomorrow will handle the latter."

OBAMA IV: You Wanna Unite The Party? Attack McCain!

Several liberal bloggers are arguing that the best way to bring together Clinton supporters and Obama supporters isn't to dwell on their respective grievances, but to make a strong case against McCain:

• Marshall: "If this is about the Hillary forces and Obama forces each analyzing each others actions, endlessly ad infinitum, there's no chance the Democrats are going to do better than just get along. Where these two sides are really going to come together is over making the case against John McCain. He's the clear and present danger."
• Yglesias: "As you may recall, several months ago it looked as if one of America's two major political parties was going to have a serious 'party unity' problem. Their nominating contest produced a winner who'd prevailed against divided opposition without ever proving himself to be a clear majority choice anywhere. What's more, the party's base was divided between a substantial element that strongly approved of the party's unpopular incumbent president, and another substantial element that joined the majority of the public in disapproving of his job performance. What's more, the winner had a long history of personal and professional tensions with key stakeholders in his party's political movement and with leading party politicians."
• Yglesias continues: "And yet, these tensions were overcome! And not overcome, primarily, by endless hand-holding sessions in which the various aggrieved parties recited their complaints from one side of their mouth while talking of their admiration for each other out of the other side. And they certainly weren't overcome by speaking in more detail about a policy agenda. Rather, though there was of course some hand-holding, unity was primarily achieved by shifting attention off the internally controversial [subject] of their nominee and his relationship to other party figures and on to the internally uncontroversial subject of how awful the other political party is. Whether there may be any lessons in this for any other political parties is something I'll leave to readers to judge."

OBAMA V: A Missed Opportunity?

Conservative bloggers weren't particularly impressed by the programming during the first night of the DNC:

• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "It strikes me that Republicans have every reason to feel good about the first night of the Democrat convention. It's hard to tell what, if anything, was achieved in furtherance of making the case for Barack Obama -- who, incidentally, told the assemblage that he was in St. Louis, when he was really in Kansas City (imagine if Dan Quayle or George W. had made such a gaffe!)."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "[Dem strategist James] Carville says the Dems wasted a quarter of their convention last night. I tend to agree...It was fine, but it was not magical."
• Hawkins: "Overall, this was a poorly organized bomb. It gets a D- grade and only Michelle Obama and Ted Kennedy saved it from being a complete and utter failure. You want to know how bad it was? Even James Carville and [CNN's] David Gergen were panning it. Why was it so bad? Let us count the ways, my friends. It was poorly organized, had a lame group of speakers, didn't hit any overriding themes, didn't build Barack up very much, didn't fire up liberals, didn't attack the GOP -- it just did very little for the Dems in any way, shape, or form beyond perhaps improving Michelle Obama's image a tad."

OBAMA VI: A Total Meltdown?

Conservative bloggers are also buzzing about rumors of tensions between the Clinton camp and the Obama camp:

• RedState's Soren Dayton: "The word on the street is total meltdown. The Clintons and their advisors aren't even staying for the final speech. Bill Clinton is openly whining about his speaking assignment. And that's before Joe Biden stuffs most of his leg in his mouth."
• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "The intensely political city is being wracked by sectarian conflict that appears ready to devolve into out and out civil war, with partisans on each side looking to destroy the other as they work to ensure the political supremacy of their respective leaders. Baghdad? No, Denver. [...] I am sure that we will have the show of unity at the end of all of this. But the question of whether a disgruntled group of Clintonites decides to hold back and ultimately serves to deny Barack Obama the Presidency is not a closed one."
• The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini: "The Clinton chatter is dominant. The Clintons will get two nights in Denver -- Hillary Tuesday, and Bill Wednesday. The coverage on the cables so far this morning has been all about the Clintons. High-profile Clinton surrogates complaining about the lack of VP vetting with the RNC/McCain capitalizing, Bill being upset about his speech topic, Hillary jerking her delegates around, effectively telling them 'Nevermind' after making a show about the 'catharsis' of the roll call a couple of weeks ago. If the Clintons really wanted to screw with Obama's chances, setting up Hillary 2012, this would be the week to do it. And this is what they seem to be doing."
• Lewis: "Seriously, I don't know how Obama should handle [the Clintons]...you can't roll over for them, but you can't stand up to them, either. This could get very interesting..."

MEDIA CRITICISM: Stop Obsessing About The Friggin' PUMAs!

Liberal bloggers are frustrated with the media's preoccupation with Clinton supporters who plan to vote for McCain:

• TAPPED's Dana Goldstein: "Sitting inside the Pepsi Center, watching delegates dancing to the sounds of a funk band and screaming their heads off each time Barack Obama's name is mentioned, it's hard to believe that outside, the cable news networks are talking obsessively about tensions between the Obama and Clinton camps. It's one thing to train your camera on the spectacle of 'PUMA' protesters wearing Clinton tee-shirts adorned with McCain stickers, many of whom are registered and lifelong Republicans. It's another to imply that these folks somehow represent Democratic delegates, or are the theme of the convention itself."
• georgia10: "Here on the ground in Denver, you would be hard pressed to find someone who is willing to vote for John McCain in the fall. Sure, the place is teeming with people who voted for Hillary, but the general consenus here is that we need to get a Democrat into the White House. Period. That won't stop television reporters from flocking to the rare PUMA in the streets wearing a Hillary or Bust t-shirt. But the force of these individuals here at the convention isn't as compelling as the media make it out to be. While PUMAs may think they're here to roar for Hillary only, in the midst of all of this energy for Obama and the Democratic Party, PUMA whining is nothing more than a barely audible meow."
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "I've been wandering around Denver for a couple days now and haven't seen any sign of the PUMAs -- the diehards who purport to support Hillary, but are really just a bunch of media hogs and losers. From my vantage point here in Denver, it feels like the hype has been overblown. (Via Jed, [NBC Political Director] Chuck Todd thinks so, too.) The folks I know who supported Hillary -- and a lot of them are here -- want a Democrat to win in November."
• Yglesias: "Is there any chance that NBC News or CBS News or ABC News or CNN or MSNBC or Fox News will give one tenth as much airtime to [NARAL President] Nancy Keenan's speech (ongoing as I blog) on the differences between the candidates on reproductive rights as they gave today to vague meta-talk about 'what Obama needs to do' to win over Hillary Clinton's supporters? No. And yet Keenan's speech if full of actual information, noting that 'the Supreme Court is at an ideological tipping point...and the next president will decide Roe's fate.' I think well-informed liberals and conservatives alike would basically agree with that, but many voters don't seem to realize this. Watching Keenan would leave viewers better informed than they were previously. Watching talking heads ponder the PUMA phenomenon accomplishes, well, I couldn't quite say what."

Bowers urges the netroots not to worry so much about the PUMAs: "PUMA's act like idiots, and that is also a good thing. Self-identified Democratic concern trolls who are willing to trash the Democratic Party are a dime a dozen, and the media will pick up on them whoever they are. It is much better that our major concern trolls right now are idiotic PUMA's who have no idea who to influence voters, then media savvy, corporate funded pundits who could do real damage. Even the McCain campaign knows this, because they aren't throwing any money behind their ad featuring a PUMA. These are the sorts of concern trolls that we want. It's the [The New Republic]'s of the world that are actually dangerous to progressives."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Huckabee As VP?

NRO's Rich Lowry floats the possibility:

"There's no indication that [Mike] Huckabee is being considered, so consider this idle speculation like the Hillary chatter prior to Obama's pick. But wouldn't Huckabee make a lot of sense given the things we've learned the last two weeks? 1) McCain might have a 'wealth problem,' and certainly Democrats are going to try to hit his wealth for all its worth in their play for working-class voters; Huckabee doesn't have a problem on this front, and has lots of working-class cred. 2) The pro-choice trial balloon hasn't been well received, and it's clear that a pro-choice nominee would create a major disruption; Huckabee is pro-life. 3) Obama picked Biden who is going to a vivid presence (for better or worse) on the stump and could be formidable in debate; Huckabee is a great campaigner and might be just the guy to puncture Biden in a debate. 4) (This is a less important point.) The McCain folks have made a huge deal about differences between Obama and Biden during the primaries; McCain and Huckabee didn't have much in the way of differences and went out of their way to praise each other. The other upsides are the press likes Huckabee (for now), he's a different kind of Republican, and his selection would be such a shock, it might even be considered bold. The downsides are -- as I've noted many times before -- he doesn't have much in the way of national security credentials and has a big seriousness gap, obviously not trifling matters. But if McCain can't do [CT Sen. Joe] Lieberman, and isn't thrilled by [MN Gov. Tim] Pawlenty or [Mitt] Romney, Huckabee might be worth a last-minute second look."

LEST WE FORGET: Apparently, Giraffes Can Only Duck At Low Speeds

From Overheard in the Office:

Cube dweller #1: You've worked with giraffes?
Cube dweller #2: Yeah, transporting them is a real pain. They go in an open trailer, and every time you get to an overpass, you have to either let air out of all the tires to fit under it, or you have to stop, back them out of the trailer, walk them around the overpass, get them back in the trailer...It takes forever to get anywhere.
Cube dweller #1: Can't you just teach them to duck?
Cube dweller #2: (long pause) Not at those speeds.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at August 26, 2008 12:58 PM