Slick Willy Running Diary: The Treatment

Pre-speech note:
Richard Wolfe of Newsweek (who I’ve always thought was a smart, good journalist) just said that Obama’a people only saw Bill’s speech an hour before he gave it, and that Bill didn’t employ any speechwriters at all. They also said it would be “way over” the 10 minutes he was allotted. Ok then. Here was go. I’m legitimately curious about what he’s going to say.

9:03: Bill enters to “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”.

9:04: The crowd’s going pretty nuts for Bill.

9:05: 1st sentence. “We have important work to do here tonight.” YES YES YES! That’s exactly what somebody needs to say.

9:10: I love his two points of emphasis, domestic policy and foreign affairs.

9:11: “Clearly the job of the next president is to rebuild the American dream and restore American leadership around the world”. Exactly. Now tell me why John McCain can’t do it.

9:12: Close…he’s talking about why Obama can. Not enough though. Not enough. He’s got to stake his entire experience and judgment on McCain’s lack of ability to do the job. Maybe not the ex-presidential thing to do, but damn it, this is no joke.

9:14: Ok, Obama’s great. I get it. I want to be scared of McCain. Scare me.

9:17: “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.” Great rhetoric. It’s probably not going to get Obama any votes or anything, but…hey, it’s a helluva line.

9:18: Now he’s starting to hammer at the “Republicans”. It sounds great. He hasn’t said McCain’s name once. Sorry, but that’s a problem.

9:20: His first mention is that he’s a “good man”. “He loves his country every bit as much as we do. As a senator, he has shown his independence of right wing orthodoxy on many important issues.” Seriously? Again, this is the first time he’s mentioned his name.

9:21: He takes a swipe at him after that, but not a big one.

9:24: Too analytical. I want him to tell me to take his word for it.

9:24: “In this case, the third time is not the charm.” Ha.

9:26: And, we’re done. 23 minutes. If they did intend it for 10, it was pretty long.

Immediate thoughts: He’s a great rhetorician, and this is another great example of that, but I have reservations. Maybe this convention was all about getting HRC’s voters back on board, and hopefully it achieved that…however, and I’m sorry to belabor this point, but is anybody EVER going to really rip into McCain? Sadly, the answer must now be no. I’m sure Biden will, but one man doesn’t make a message. Obama’s going to go lofty tomorrow, he’s in a stadium for god’s sake, and confrontational rhetoric isn’t his forte.

The Democrats had to say (over and over again) that your kids aren’t safe with McCain’s hands on the wheel, steering for Russia – that your daughters and mothers and their doctors aren’t safe from imprisonment – that every member of the LGBT community isn’t safe from discrimination. That people (even Americans) aren’t safe from torture.

They didn’t. Their only real goal here was to bridge the gap with Clinton’s supporters. They did that by concentrating on why Obama is great and qualified, and not by making McCain an utterly unacceptable alternative.

Republicans won’t bother with this. They won’t spend all their time telling the Christian Right that McCain’s devoutly religious. They’ll portray Obama as a Muslim foreigner. They won’t go to the Twin Cities trying to get the Rush Limbaughs of the world on board by talking about how John McCain will send all Mexican immigrants in freight cars across the Rio Grande. They’ll tell you that Obama will give California back to Mexico and take your jobs – creating a huge monolithic government that collects 90 cents on the dollar from your paycheck in taxes.

And next week, when they repeatedly shout all these lies, the Obama camp, and people like me will call them lying bastards, and they will be. But, if we’d spent the same amount of time calling him a dangerous, frightening, liar to begin with, those transparent falsehoods would feed into the narrative that had already been created. I haven’t seen one, single, person on stage really questioning John McCain’s truthfulness. I haven’t heard one, single person explicitly say that his foreign policy vision is dangerous and destabilizing. And I’m telling you, that’s a mistake.

For the first time ever, I see a real path to victory for McCain, and it’s a sinking, frightening feeling. Obama had better have some real magic up his sleeves tomorrow.
Rating: 3 LSs of 5