Hillary: The speech of her life

By Steve Perry
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 10:03 am

Photo: Jason Kosena/Colorado Independent

It was the old Reagan/Bush I hand Peggy Noonan who described the stakes in Hillary Clinton’s speech to the DNC most succinctly. It was clear, more or less, what Clinton would say, Noonan told NBC. What mattered was the inflection of the performance–whether Clinton sold her support of Obama/Biden from the floor to the rafters of Pepsi Center and to living rooms across the land.

This she did, with the most pitch-perfect rallying cry of her public career. And although the speech Clinton gave feels inevitable in some sense after the fact, because remarkable pieces of public rhetoric always do, what she would do did not seem obvious to anyone five minutes before the fact. Here’s betting that she singlehandedly afforded Obama his fretted-over post-convention bounce in the polls.

Hillary’s address may prove to be a pivotal moment in the presidential campaign, but that depends mainly on things that have not yet have happened: most immediately, tonight’s speech by Bill Clinton, a man who by all accounts is still seething with jealousy and resentment toward the upstart Obama; and most consequentially, Hillary Clinton’s own words and deeds between now and November 4.

Hillary Clinton: Democratic Convention speech, pt 1 (8:23)

Hillary Clinton: Democratic convention speech, pt 2 (7:16)

Hillary Clinton: Democratic convention speech, pt 3 (7:21)

Comments

1 Comment

Demko
Comment posted August 27, 2008 @ 11:14 am

I found Maureen Dowd's take on the speech extraordinarily bizarre:

“She added insult to injury by coming out Tuesday night looking great in a blazing orange pantsuit and teaching the precocious pup Obama something about intensity and message. She thanked her 'sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits,' and slyly noted that Obama would enact her health care plan rather than his.

She offered the electrifying fight that the limpid Obama has not — setting off paranoia among some Democrats that they had chosen the wrong nominee or that Obama had chosen the wrong running mate.”

So by giving such a forceful and convincing speech Clinton is still seeking to sabotage Obama's campaign? That makes no sense. Dowd then goes on to suggest all kinds of angst and acrimony among the delegates in Denver, but only manages to quote one. I think the storyline of discord within Democratic ranks — at least at the party activist level — is mostly a media fabrication at this point.

The real concern for Dems heading into the final two days of the convention is the one expressed by James Carville: “Well if this party has a message it has done a hell of a job of hiding it tonight I promise you that,” he said on CNN.

Day one was all about biography, establishing Obama (and his wife) as sufficiently American and God-fearing to lead the country. Day two was all about Hillary. Despite the attempts to pummel McCain on economic issues in speeches by Warner, Strickland and Schweitzer, the only message that got through was Hillary's strong backing. So the first half of the convention has been dominated by preventive defense. Pretty amazing considerable the rich feast of topics on which the Dems should be able to effectively butcher the GOP.

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