I’m currently sitting between two of my liberal buddies and figured I should document my thoughts.

(note: one of them comes up with, “I consider myself progressive, thank you very much”. The other comes up with, “I’m a socialist, if anything”.)

Nancy Pelosi: I only caught the tail end of it, but I heard a lot about Barack Obama being right and John McCain being wrong. It was kinda funny, actually. The crowd was very quiet…I’ll cut the Dems some slack and say that they are too busy eating their organic, tri-color food in organic packaging. (Reminder: I’m not kidding. The DNC has strict rules on food being 70% local and/or organic and at least 3 colors must be represented…but Obama is BI-racial, not TRI-racial. Perhaps he isn’t as progressive as we were told)

highlight: Pelosi says that Obama has brought bi-partisanship back to Washington. WHEN? The ethics bill and …um….well….

Oh, yea. I forgot. History doesn’t matter in Obamaland!

Tribute to Jimmy Carter. Democrats haven’t realized they should pretend he never existed? Democrat is elected in a very weak economy, facing a global scourge by an enemy of the US, and facing an energy shortage and then absolutely makes it worse? THIS is the image? Go for it, guys!

Jesse Jackson Jr.: His attempts to channel his father and Barack Obama fall a bit short. He tried hard. And if we know anything about liberal ideology, if you try, that’s good enough. We can always add a government subsidy to hook him up. Somehow his father’s goal of physically emasculating Obama goes unmentioned.

Highlight: Jesse Jackson Jr. talks about great moments in American history; Lexington & Concord, Appomattox (apparently not the courthouse), Selma, and Denver. Really? Revolutionary War. Civil War. Civil Rights movement. Obama’s nomination.

it’s official, they’ve gone off the deep end.

Caroline Kennedy comes out to introduce Ted Kennedy. She is a train wreck of a speaker. She seems awkward and uncomfortable. She also makes the obligatory comparison of Obama to JFK.
Random list of “Democratic” accomplishments that she is attributing to Ted Kennedy.
“If your taxes are about $5,000 too much because of unnecessary government, Teddy is your senator, too!”

Highlight: There are about 16 camera cut-aways to Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy Clan. No Schwarzenegger, thankfully. Is this a reminder that there are other living Kennedys? Or is it to suggest that Arnie doesn’t support Obama.

The tribute to Ted Kennedy is odd. It’s more documentary than tribute. There is an odd infatuation with the ocean…I guess too much of a hardened conservative to get this. Ted fought for better equipment for troops. DIDN’T OBAMA OPPOSE FUTURE SPENDING IN IRAQ? Wow. The Democrats are now officially supporting stances on key issues that their own Presidential nominee proudly opposes?
Let the cannibalism continue!

Ted is alright. The speech is pretty good and is a thinly veiled attempt to recreate Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme. It’s rosy. It’s optimistic.

lull in the action as commentators talk about Ted Kennedy’s legacy and the attempts to humanize Barack Obama. Does it bother anyone else that Obama needs to be humanized? Shouldn’t all presidential candidates be human, anyway? Unless, of course, he is *drumroll* MANCHURIAN!

Highlight: “The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years towards regulating values”. Wait, wait, wait. The Democratic Party is the one that DOESN’T regulate values? Was that before or after Democrats waged a war on trans fats, SUVs, and the minimum wage while supporting hate crime legislation and Affirmative-Action. ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME?

enter: some random former Republican congressman from Iowa. This guy is a vanilla speaker and clearly there to prop up the notion of Barack’s bipartisanship. Is this the best they have? They think this guy, who was never famous and will never be famous, is the answer? Damn, even the Republicans didn’t pretend to be bipartisan in 2004 and they had this guy:

Claire McCaskill: Senator from Missouri
She starts off way too cheery. It’s a little creepy. Is this how Obama wants Clinton? A Stepford Senator?
She tells her story and her husband’s story and calls Barack’s and Michelle’s American stories. She skips out on when Michelle became a racist in college and Barack was supported by William Ayers and married by Jeremiah Wright.
On second thought, her creepy smile isn’t so bad. She is doing a nice job providing a “pragmatic” and “friendly” view of Obama. I could see middle-aged mothers seeing themselves in McCaskill and playfully agreeing. This might be the best speech of the night. The only hitch for Democrats is that McCaskill will only make the contrast between her and Michelle that much more obvious.

Here we go: Michelle Obama!

Here is her bio pic. It’s about her love for South Side. This attempt to humanize her is really laying it on thick. Michelle loves her kids (I’d hope). She has reached out to others (unless they are proud Americans. Then they’re ignorant). She makes people feel better (unless they are greedy capitalists. Then they should become teachers)

She is introduced by her brother, who happens to be the basketball coach of Oregon State (Go beavers?). There is a series of odd basketball analogies. I’m a sports fan, and even I think this is bs. He tries to deliver this line on Michelle and Barack helping the American people and it comes across flat. He doesn’t even believe his own crap!

Here’s Michelle! She is wearing a kelly green dress-like thing. There is some sort of broach (brooch? breach? I’m not sure what its called) at the neckline.

How many times she has said “change: 1

9:39 CST - she plays the humanizing card with jokes and sentimentality about her family

9:43 CST - give dignity to strangers (the same bitter American strangers or the friendly, self-righteous Princeton undergrads who hate black people?)

9:44 CST - America should be a place where you can make it if you try (unless you support an expansion of unemployment programs and government entitlement programs, then you don’t have to try)

9:45 CST - “We settle for the world as it is, not as it should be” (life lessons from Ray Nagin!)

9:46 CST - Obama channels woman’s suffrage and MLK…in case we couldn’t tell she was a black woman (my “progressive” friend smirks as he reminds me that Switzerland did not have woman’s suffrage until 1979).

9:47 CST - Michelle Obama supports Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. The Clinton reference gets a huge ovation (the contrast between Michelle and Hillary is too clear to be overcome, sorry speech writers)

9:49 CST - “I love this country” - THIS BRINGS A STANDING OVATION FROM THE CROWD. In case you haven’t figured it out yet: the Democrats are definitely in trouble when there is surprise and excitement to hear that a potential first lady loves her country.

9:51 CST - “Give each child a world-class education”…by throwing money at the problem? by supporting the federal government’s incursion into education? The same federal incursion that Democrats condemn in their staunch opposition to NCLB? Hypocrisy: it’s in the air.

9:54 CST - She’s almost crying talking about how Barack wanted to give his daughter a father’s love. (soooo we ARE allowed to talk about how Barack had an absentee Kenyan father who had scores of children through multiple women. Including one child who currently starves to death Kenya, only meeting his famous half-brother twice in 30 years?)

9:55 CST - “A girl from teh South Side can..” do whatever she wants. (Was that the WHITE values of success and high-paying jobs in law firms? I can’t keep her racist tendencies straight)

9:57 CST - Barack shows up via live feed from Kansas City. He shows some comedic chops with the reference to his courting of Michelle and his “persistence’.

My thoughts: I think Michelle gave a good speech and played up the Trophy Wife that Americans expect from a First Lady. She gave a nice look at Barack Obama as a person, but Barack still has serious (and legitimate) obstacles to be seen as anything other than elitist socialist. David Brooks had great analysis saying that Michelle missed the opportunity to make Barack a person, not just a savior.

I hope to be live blogging each night of the DNC and provide a post each morning on a DNC-related topic. So log on here each night this week for all sorts of shenanigans.

The rhetoric will get more ridiculous, but I’ll be sure to stay Pragmatically Political