Aug.22

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DNC, Day Two: Obama Nation

The headliners yesterday were Michelle and Barack Obama, arguably the two biggest rock stars in the Democratic Party right now. They were not the whole show, however, by any means.

If you wish to watch Day Two, you can do so here:

Note that the links we provided yesterday to specific portions of the video—which, by the way, take some fair amount of time to compile—were working correctly when the page went live yesterday, but broke later in the day. We think we know why that is, and hopefully have corrected for it. Anyhow, here are the 10 most notable storylines on Day Two:

1. A Masterpiece by Raphael: The single most common comment we got in the mailbag yesterday was "How come you didn't mention the speech from Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA)?" And the answer, such as it is, is that we linked to 8 speeches in yesterday's item, and gave high marks to at least six of them. We didn't want to get too repetitive, and we thought the other speeches were more worthy of mention, either because they illustrated the Democrats' goals (the speech from the ALS sufferer; the speech by Gov. Andy Beshear, D-KY), or they could propel the speaker to greater heights (the speech from state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-MI; the speech from Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-TX), or they were delivered by the sitting President of the United States. We recognize that Warnock could also be a rising star, in that he's certainly presidential/vice-presidential material one of these days, but he's not really a secret. All of this said, Warnock was very, very good, just as good as the half-dozen others we gave good reviews to yesterday. If you want to go back and watch, his address is linked in the title of this section.
   
   The interesting question that this all raises, for us at least, is why the DNC has so many more really good speakers than the RNC did. There were certainly some very successful speeches at the RNC, but the number of really good speakers at that entire convention is almost certainly less than the number we saw just on Day One or just on Day Two of the DNC. While we accept that, perhaps, the things the DNC speakers have to say are more pleasing to our ears, we really don't think that's the answer. We thought about it a fair bit yesterday, and here are the alternative theories we came up with:
   
   
   • Background: A very large percentage of Democratic politicians were previously lawyers, teachers, religious leaders, community activists, etc.—jobs that require significant amounts of public speaking. A fairly large percentage of Republican politicians come from a business or military background, where public speaking is less important.
     
     
   • Age: Democratic politicians (at least, the ones who spoke at the Convention), tend to be younger than Republican politicians (at least, the ones who spoke at the Convention). Perhaps younger people have more energy, or a better command of current idiom, or a better sense of how to present oneself on TV/video.
     
     
   • Big and Small: Democratic politicians are drawn disproportionately from big states and, in particular, big cities. When you're competing with 35 million other people for a political office (as a would-be U.S. Senator from California has to do), maybe you have to be better at all phases of the game than when you're competing with 600,000 other people (as a would-be U.S. Senator from Wyoming has to do). Even if we are generally right about this, though, the effect is clearly not universal. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is from a big state, and he's a godawful public speaker.
     
     
   • Yin and Yang: The tone of the Democratic convention is almost entirely upbeat. The tone of the Republican convention, at least after the first day, was overwhelmingly negative. It's generally easier to nail a "hope and joy" speech than a "the world's going to hell" speech.
     
     
   • Sycophant Elephants: On the whole, we have the impression that the Democratic speakers really believe what they are saying. Many of the Republicans, by contrast, gave off the sense that they were saying what they had to say to keep the base happy. Or, alternatively, to keep Donald Trump happy. When a speaker has real conviction, the audience can sense that. They can also sense when a speaker does not have real conviction.
   
   That's what we've got with a few hours' reflection. We are open to other explanations; send them to comments@electoral-vote.com. We are also open to being told that we're wrong about the RNC, and that the speakers there were stellar. Especially Ted Cruz.
   
   Incidentally, we took a look at the reviews of Joe Biden's speech after yesterday's post went live, and many commentators and readers agreed with us that it was a home run. Some commentators and readers were much less impressed, perhaps most obviously The New York Times' David Brooks, who put his nose to the grindstone and wrote 301 whole words explaining that the speech was "Lackluster" for... reasons? If we produced so few words, we'd actually get these things posted on time. But, for some reason, we insist on producing twenty times as much. Oh, well. In any case, it's just another reminder that Brooks is no longer worth reading. And we don't say that because he's a 'Nade. At least, not ONLY because he's a 'Nade.
   
   
2. Boring?: Yesterday, we noted that Day One went an hour longer than it was supposed to, and we opined that wasn't a big deal. What we were anticipating (correctly) was that there would be a bunch of pieces slamming the Democrats for their incompetence/lack of organization.
   
   Some readers thought we were actually speaking to a rather different issue, namely "Is the DNC boring?" We have watched every minute of the first 2 days, and our opinion is: No, at least not for politics junkies. The Democrats tend to dominate the entertainment and tech industries. That means they have an advantage in terms of stagecraft, in terms of producing slick video content, and in terms of getting interesting entertainers. The blue team is leveraging all of these advantages to the hilt (see below for several good examples).
   
   The DNC also has fewer speakers per day than the RNC, and most of the speakers are honoring a pretty tight time limit. More important, perhaps, is something that (Z) learned in his first week of teacher training: You have to change gears if you want to keep your audience's attention. The Democrats are doing a good job of mixing things up—a typical sequence might be speech-speech-video-speech-musical performance-video-speech. The Republicans did not shift gears nearly as often, at least in part because they were trying to get SO MANY PEOPLE on stage for their bright, shining moments.
   
   
3. Stirring the Pot: When the Republicans were holding their convention, the Democrats (especially party leadership) largely shut their yaps. Maybe they were observing the general custom of letting the other party have its moment in the sun. Maybe they didn't feel they could say anything because Donald Trump had just survived an assassination attempt. Maybe they were hoping that if they remained silent for a week or so, voters might forget about Joe Biden's debate performance. Who knows?
   
   Whatever the case might be, the Republicans are not returning the favor, and are doing whatever they can to try to derail the Democrats' momentum. We'll run down a few examples, some of which are really bat**it crazy. First up, since there aren't too many cool Trumpublican celebrities, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to steal some of the Democrats' coolest celebrities. For example, he posted AI-generated images to "Truth" Social this weekend, making the claim that he's been endorsed by Taylor Swift. Yesterday, he posted a video of himself with "Freedom" playing in the background. That, of course, is the Beyoncé/Kendrick Lamar song that played when Kamala Harris appeared onstage at the DNC on Monday. We're not sure we understand the point here; is anyone really going to believe that Swift or Beyoncé is a Trumper?
   
   The right-wing media are also doing their part. Yesterday, in preparation for the Obamas' speeches, the folks on Fox dusted off both the Obama tan suit thing and the Obama birth certificate thing yet again. They also claimed that Obama is the puppetmaster behind the Democratic throne, and that he'll be pulling the strings for at least the next 25 years.
   
   J.D. Vance, for his part, is trying to make hay out of something that Andy Beshear said during an MSNBC hit on Tuesday. The Governor was asked about the Trump/Vance ticket's position on abortion, and answered:

   It's just fear tactics and it's just lying to people. I mean, think about what some people have had to go through because of these laws. I mean, J.D. Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape inconvenient. Like inconvenience is traffic. I mean, it is—make him go through this! I mean, it is someone being violated, someone being harmed and then telling them that they don't have options after that. That fails any test of decency, of humanity. But here's the thing, it also shows they don't have any empathy at all. And a president and a vice president has to have empathy. You got to be able to put yourself in a position that you've never been in to try to understand somebody else, because you've got to be a president and a vice president for all of America, not just where you're from, not just for your friend group, but for all of America.

   The claim that Vance is making is that Beshear called for him (Vance) to be raped. That is clearly not the case; Beshear was not speaking literally. And obviously, a literal interpretation is not even possible, as Vance is male, and not in a position to literally carry an unwanted pregnancy due to rape. Nonetheless, the Trump/Vance campaign is demanding an apology, and they also insist that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz repudiate Beshear. Don't hold your breath, fellas.
   
   And finally, because Tim Walz led students on multiple trips to China, the Republicans are working on a narrative that he is a Chinese sleeper agent. To that end, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has announced a formal investigation into Walz' ties with China. And as loony as that is, it gets a little crazier. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who is apparently all-in on the Walz-is-a-Chinese-agent narrative, is claiming that Walz deliberately chose his wedding date (June 4, 1994)... to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Tiananmen Square. We think the Senator's tinfoil hat might be on a bit too tight.
   
   That said, we would be remiss if we did not point out that Johnson's wedding anniversary was actually yesterday. That means he was married on the date that right-wing bushwhackers from Missouri, under the leadership of William Quantrill, commenced a raid on the town of Lawrence, KS, which was that era's version of San Francisco—liberals everywhere. Quantrill and his men ultimately slaughtered 150 innocent left-wing citizens of Lawrence. Did Johnson think we would not notice that he chose to get married precisely 114 years later? Please.
   
   Reportedly, a major motivation behind all this noise is that Donald Trump is scared witless that Kamala Harris' convention speech will get better ratings than his did. His relatively strong ratings are a major source of self-worth for him, and he apparently is having trouble sleeping thanks to the thought that Harris might do better. He has good reason to worry; the first night of the DNC drew 20 million people. That's better than any of the first three nights of the RNC (which drew 18.1 million, 14.8 million and 18 million people, respectively). Plus, his speech was long-winded and his act is stale, whereas Harris' speech is kind of like her debutante ball. Also, keep reading.
   
   
4. Diversity v2.0: We noted yesterday that a clear motif of the Democratic Convention is diversity. Day One highlighted the Party's ethnic diversity, and Day Two continued with that theme. Yesterday, religious diversity was another point of emphasis. The Invocation was done by a rabbi and an imam; the Benediction was done by a bishop from the African Methodist Episcopal Church and an archbishop from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Can you imagine, in particular, an imam being invited to speak to the RNC? We can't.
   
   The speakers last night also featured Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) in order. That's three members of the tribe, back-to-back-to-back, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff followed not long thereafter. We seriously doubt that was a coincidence; the Democrats don't want to aggravate the protesters, but they do want to connect with Jewish voters.
   
   Another form of diversity, arguably, is diversity of thought. Last night featured a bunch of rank-and-file former Trumpers talking about why they just can't vote Trump anymore. There were also several Republican speakers, including pundit Ana Navarro, Mesa (AZ) Mayor John Giles and, in a particularly devastating former-insider-who-has-details-to-share takedown, former Trump White House insider Stephanie Grisham. There are going to be more disaffected Republicans on Days Three and Four.
   
   There wasn't much of anything like this at the RNC—people who once voted for Joe Biden, but just can't do it anymore. Maybe the Republicans couldn't find people like that. Maybe they didn't think to find them and put them on stage. Maybe the construction "I can no longer overlook Trump's ______________" works a lot better than "I can no longer overlook Biden's ______________."
   
   
5. In Memoriam: We do not recall ever seeing this at a previous convention, Democratic or Republican. And now that we HAVE seen it, we can't believe it's taken so long. We assume it will become de rigueur at future conventions, on both sides of the aisle.
   
   What the Democrats did was borrow one of the most popular features of the Oscars (and other awards shows), namely an "In Memoriam" segment remembering the people who have passed since the previous ceremony. With the Oscars, to take the most famous example, it is a real juggling act to fit in as many people as possible within the allocated time. With a political convention, you've got four times as long a time period to cover (4 years instead of 1) and a much broader variety of human endeavors (the tribute included politicians, soldiers, entertainers, activists, etc.). That meant they had to put up a dozen names at a time, on a giant screen, as opposed to giving 1-2 seconds per person. Still, it was a nice touch (with Patti LaBelle providing the musical accompaniment). See what we said above about stagecraft.
   
   
6. Presidents Night: The Democrats would like to remind everyone that they are the party who brought you such popular presidents as John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. The latter was on stage last night, of course, while the former two could not be present, for obvious reasons. Nonetheless, the blue team worked around that by having Jason Carter, grandson of Jimmy, give a brief speech, followed by Jack Schlossberg, grandson of John. Bill Clinton was not represented, as he will speak tonight. Nor was Lyndon B. Johnson; maybe Luci Baines Johnson was busy.
   
   
7. IVF Night: The Democrats highlighted abortion access on Monday night, and on Tuesday, a major theme was IVF access. We are a little surprised that didn't wait for the night Tim Walz is speaking. Maybe the IVF videos and testimonials will continue for a second night tonight, or maybe the Democrats have some other aspect of reproductive rights they want to highlight.
   
   
8. Roll Call: If you want to see stagecraft, then you should watch some (or even all) of the Democrats' roll call. It was entirely symbolic, as the nominations were made official before the convention. Still, the blue team pulled out all the stops.
   
   It was not especially practical to replicate the pandemic-era shtick, where votes were cast from notable landmarks within each state. After all, the delegates did not travel hundreds or thousands of miles, just to watch a video. So, what the Democrats did this time was put a picture or two from each state up on the giant screen on stage. Then, the blue-suited DJ Cassidy played a song (or more than one, in some cases) chosen by each delegation. And then, the delegations, all of them wearing concert-style lighted bracelets, cast their votes. Quite often, the 4-5 people visible on screen included a celebrity. For example, Lil Jon helped Georgia cast its ballots, while Spike Lee was part of the New York delegation, Sean Astin was there to assist Indiana and Eva Longoria was a member of the Texas delegation. In other cases, states put together megawatt collections of political star power. For example, California's votes were cast by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and activist Dolores Huerta.
   
   Tomorrow, we'll have a rundown of the songs that all the delegations chose, and why, because it's an excellent example of political stagecraft/branding in action. We wanted to do it for today, but time did not allow. For now, reader B.M. in Chico, CA, has brought to our attention this Spotify playlist, which has all the songs that were played.
   
   Also, let us quickly anticipate two questions. First, since Democrats Abroad don't have a specific home state or territory to show off, their pictures were... the Arc de Triomphe and the Roman Forum. Second, California skipped its place in the roll call and did not cast its ballots until the very end. That is because it is customary for the presidential candidate's home state to go last.
   
   Back to stagecraft, for a moment, none of the stars of Day One were present yesterday. Hillary Clinton was presumably in her hotel room helping Bill prepare his speech. Joe Biden flew to California for a holiday in the wine country. And Kamala Harris was holding a rally while the DNC was underway. Why did she counter-program her own convention? Well, part of it is that the candidate does not really need to be present for all 4 days. The much bigger part of it, however, was the place where the rally was staged.
   
   Once the roll call was official, Harris and Walz appeared via satellite link, from the rally, to formally accept the Democrats' nomination. They weren't too terribly far away; the rally was held at... Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, WI. In other words, the same venue where the RNC took place. That means that when Harris and Walz appeared onscreen to accept their nominations, you could see the site of the DNC, jam-packed with Harris supporters, and also the site of the RNC, jam-packed with Harris supporters. If that is not a flex, we don't know what is.
   
   
9. Doug Emhoff: Last night was the Second Gentleman's turn to speak; he was the lead-up to the Obamas. And he was a very good appetizer. As one of those Democrats with a public speaking background, he was excellent, with remarks that were alternately touching, self-deprecating, pointed, amusing and thoughtful. He will be a big asset to the Harris campaign, especially since his counterpart has made only two appearances this entire cycle, and doesn't figure to make many more.
   
   
10. Michelle and Barack Obama: Did we mention the Obamas are rock stars? Particularly when appearing before a crowd of devoted Democrats? There could be no doubt of it if you watched their appearances last night. Barack is one of the five or six best public speakers ever to serve as president. Michelle is one of the two or three best public speakers ever to serve as first spouse. It's possible they are the best speaking duo ever to occupy the White House. It's between them and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, we'd say.
    
    Both Obamas have the "soaring rhetoric" bit down pat. This part, from Michelle's speech, got a huge response (no surprise, given the nature of the crowd):

    We only have two and a half months, y'all, to get this done. Only 11 weeks to make sure every single person we know is registered and has a voting plan. So we cannot afford for anyone, anyone, anyone in America to sit on their hands and wait to be called. Don't complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to you to ask you for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what you need to do. So consider this to be your official ask. Michelle Obama is asking you—no, I'm telling y'all—to do something.

    Similarly, the crowd quite liked this from Barack:

    I'm feeling hopeful because this convention has always been pretty good to kids with funny names who believe in a country where anything is possible. Because we have the chance to elect someone who's spent her whole life trying to give people the same chances America gave her. Someone who sees you and hears you and will get up every single day and fight for you: the next President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris.

    For those who don't recognize it, this is an obvious callback to the 2004 DNC speech that made Obama famous.
    
    Perhaps of greater interest, and almost certainly likely to get more attention today, is that both Obamas decided that maybe "going low" is the right call sometimes (we'll have an item on this tomorrow). As we have noted before, the dozens is a game rooted in Black culture, in which participants fire off biting insults. You might not have known it while Michelle was First Lady, but she's clearly a skilled practitioner. "His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black," she decreed, before moving in for the kill: "Who's going to tell him that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those 'Black jobs'?" Zing!
    
    Barack, for his part, said: "Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator 9 years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that's actually been getting worse now that he's afraid of losing to Kamala. There's the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes." Here, the punchline was visual, as the former president talked about crowd sizes, he put his hands together and moved them closer to each other, such that they were eventually just 3-4 inches apart. The very clear implication is that crowds are not the only thing whose size concerns Trump.

The DNC is now halfway over, and the party keeps rolling on. They've only gotta keep it up for 2 more days. (Z)