The DNC in Retrospect

Well, the Democratic National Convention is over, and let me tell you, it was a historic and nearly flawless one. Here's a recap.

Day 1:

Monday night was more special than I expected it to be with the surprise primetime addition of Sen. Ted Kennedy to the itinerary. Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor earlier in the year, and has made few public speeches since then.

But he gave a rousing speech Monday comparing Barack Obama to his brother, John F. Kennedy, in their themes of hope and passing the torch to the next generation of Americans. Kennedy sounded strong and got a huge ovation from the crowd both before and after he spoke.

The headline speaker that night was Michelle Obama, who delivered a wonderful and touching speech talking about her family growing up and being a mother among other things. In her speech, she also went on to praise Hillary Clinton for the 18 million cracks in the ceiling that she created during the primaries in the first major attempt at the convention to unite the party.

There were lingering concerns about Michelle Obama's patriotism stemming from her quote earlier in the year about how she was proud of her country for the first time in her life. She completely alleviated those concerns in her speech by repeating (I think, genuinely) that she indeed loved her country and the opportunities it offered her and Barack. In short, she accomplished exactly what she needed to accomplish in her speech and I am under the impression that it was warmly received by the vast majority of viewers.

My only major criticism about Monday night was the fact that the Democrats completely failed to go negative or even mention John McCain. And God knows the Republicans won't be as kind next week.

But besides their lack of attacks on John McCain and the GOP and their lack of backbone, the Democrats started off on a good note Monday.

Day 2:

Hillary Clinton gave a rousing endorsement of Barack Obama Tuesday night in what was--what I think--the best speech of her political career. She told her supporters that they had fought a good fight but now the battle is over, Obama won, and the party must unite to elect him. She was gracious toward Obama and extremely supportive of him while still potentially leaving room for a future candidacy.

She even went on the attack, saying "It makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart." Bam! My only criticism of the speech is that it seemed to lack any reference to Obama's strong character or his ability to lead as commander-in-chief.

But she did the best she could to unite the party with her speech Tuesday night, and if she keeps her promise in campaigning for Obama, she will have done her job.

In addition, former Virginia governor Mark Warner delivered the keynote address Tuesday night that stressed mostly the strained economy and bipartisanship. Warner is a rising star in the party who is running for Senate and is expected to pick up a seat for the Democrats this year.

Day 3:

Wednesday marked the official end of the Hillary Clinton's candidacy as the delegates at the Democratic National Convention officially nominated Barack Obama as their nominee for president.

When the roll call got to New York, Hillary Clinton moved to suspend the voting and declare Obama to be the nominee by acclamation. Although this was clearly planned out ahead of time, it still received a thunderous round of applause and was truly a historic moment.

Also, Bill Clinton gave a fantastic speech, perfectly complementing his wife's speech the night before praising Obama's leadership ability, intelligence, judgment. He compared Obama to himself in 1992, when Republicans attacked him as too inexperienced, and how when he left office, things the economy and the country, he argued, were in good shape.

He then went on the offensive attacking McCain and the Republicans both on domestic and foreign policy. Perhaps the most memorable quote from his speech was "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than the example of our power."

After Bill's speech, Joe Biden took center stage, accepting his nomination as Obama's running mate. At first, Biden emphasized his working-class roots and his inspiring life story. After that, Biden went on the offensive going after George Bush and John McCain. At one point in his speech, he mistakenly called McCain "George, " calling it a Freudian slip.

He strongly criticized the handling of Bush and McCain's war pointing out that it was a failure and it was and still is costing $12 billion of the taxpayers' money each month. He then spoke about the economy, criticizing Bush, McCain and the Republicans for the swift downturn. Biden clearly understands his role as the attack dog in this campaign--I'm glad someone's started to do it.

Day 4:

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president last night in front of 84,000 screaming enthusiastic supporters at Mile High Stadium in Denver last night.

His speech was an absolute masterpiece. It had the usual soaring rhetoric but in addition had plenty of policy details that many undecided voters really felt that they had not heard enough about.

He talked about his not-so-exotic background, his family and his American heritage. He noted that when he was a child, his mother was on food stamps because she couldn't afford to feed her family. He also pointed out that after he got his degree from Harvard Law School, instead of getting a high-paying job at a big law firm he decided to go to Chicago to help organize steel workers who had been laid off.

Then, he got into the specifics. He promised to cut back taxes for 95% of all working families, paid for by rolling back the Bush tax cuts (which McCain now supports) for the rich and large corporations. He talked about eliminating the capital gains taxes on small businesses. He also promised to end America's dependence on Middle East oil in the next ten years by investing $150 billion in alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, biofuel, nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas.

Obama also went after McCain on foreign policy, which is usually McCain's greatest strength. Obama talked about turning Iraq back over to the Iraqis and focusing the War on Terror on Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the majority of al-Qaeda still roam free. In a blistering attack on McCain, Obama said that McCain loves to say that he'll chase Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but in reality would not even follow him to the cave where he currently resides.

Obama attacked McCain relentlessly on his record, comparing his potential presidency as being Bush III, noting that McCain has voted with Bush over 90% of the time in the Senate. He said it's not that McCain doesn't care, it's that he just doesn't get it. He said McCain thinks that anyone making under $5 million per year is middle class. That's why he proposed billions in tax breaks for big corporations and nothing for ordinary Americans. That's why his health care plan taxes employer-paid health benefits. That's why he wants to gamble with people's retirements by privatizing Social Security.

With this speech, Obama did exactly what he had to do: outline clear policies and put John McCain on the defensive.

These attacks show that the Obama campaign realizes that they have been too soft with their attacks on McCain and foreshadows a change in campaign strategy for the next 67 days.

He did make a lot of promises that he probably can't or won't keep, but the overall message stayed true. But the bottom line is that Obama clearly succeeded with his Mile High gamble and left the convention with a strong advantage over his opponent.