Deconstructing the DNC Convention

The DNC took place this week, and there were several powerful speeches and several that were just OK. I'd say the DNC as a whole went out of their way to make Bernie Sanders feel special and important, and then to turn the attention to "We still have work to do." Most notably, there weren't any major dramatics — the DNC party went off fairly well. That's not to say it went perfectly smoothly: the Bernie Sanders die-hards did some booing early in the week and some even did a sit-in at the media tent (clever positioning, that) after Clinton was officially tabbed. But the scale of embarrassment on that is far lower than a primetime speaker thumbing his nose at the nominee. Further, there was a stark contrast to the RNC in tone.

Monday
If you haven't seen Michelle Obama's speech, please go out of your way to find it. It's simply masterful. The speechwriter gets paid extra for that one. She never mentions Trump, but alludes to him. Donald Trump even liked it! She took the frustration and disappointment of Sanders fans and said tactfully, "Look, Hillary was in the same position eight years ago. She didn't sulk about it, but worked just as hard for my husband (who you like). You can have that sort of impact, too." Of the four major primetime speakers Monday, she was by far the best -- but like Melania Trump, the expectations on a non-politician are lower. Yet even with lower expectations, this was the best speech of the week. Please watch it.

That's not to say the others were slackers, but they should have been cut by a few minutes (hat-tip to The Ringer for reaching this thought first). I found Elizabeth Warren tends to be more professorial (no surprise, given her background). Cory Booker, on the other hand, seemed like a preacher. Strangely, I found Bernie Sanders' speech the worst. It seemed like a stump speech that he'd given many, many times before, but with Hillary's name cut and pasted in. Compare Bernie Sanders/Michelle Obama/Elizabeth Warren/Cory Booker to Night One of the RNC: Rudy Giuliani, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Melania Trump, Scott Baio (!?!).

Tuesday
If Monday was the A Team, Tuesday was the B Team. I wasn't able to watch anything before Bill Clinton's speech, but from what I hear, there wasn't a whole lot I missed. Like all Bill Clinton speeches, I think it went long. However, a friend said that if you think of it as a First Lady speech — which it was — it was great. He spent a seemingly interminable amount of time talking about why he fell in love with Hillary, and, by implication, why you should, too. It was an example of showing, not telling. He had specific stories (compared to the Melania Trump transcript, which has none: read it yourself) about how Hillary had helped people. He looped in all the states Hillary had lived/worked in to get those states cheering. He tried to muscle back the idea of the "change candidate" being Trump. Critics will say he glossed over his infidelities to her, which was probably wise on his part. My grandma, who is no fan of Bill Clinton's, said long ago that Bill Clinton could give a speech to a group of millionaires one minute, walk out of that room and into a black church, and give the same speech, and both groups would think he's one of them. I never forgot that. It wasn't as good as Michelle Obama's speech, but it served a purpose: saying that Hillary's been doing the grunt work for a long time.

Wednesday
The heavy hitters came to the stage Wednesday. Barack Obama, Tim Kaine, Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden spoke. I didn't hear Bloomberg or Biden thanks to the kids' bedtime schedule.

Tim Kaine came off like a corny dad in his speech. He said he went to high school at Rockhurst -- my public high school's chief private school rival. GRR! There weren't many policy specifics in the speech, though. That was limited to three paragraphs and an invitation to find out the "hows" by going to the campaign website. It was mostly about highlighting the public service history of Kaine and Clinton while also attacking Trump. Mike Pence's similar speech served the same "attack dog" purpose, but didn't even have three paragraphs of policy specifics beyond "security" and "border wall" (If you doubt me, read the transcripts.).

Finally, Barack Obama. He used numbers early, then touted his administration's successes. He practically said at one point that the GOP was deeply pessimistic about the country, while he remained optimistic. He acknowledged frustration, then spoke about the inspiring aspects of the country. He challenged people to get involved and ended with an appeal to the traits his Kansas grandparents shared (without saying Trump, it was a smart move). All told, it was a full-throated endorsement and passing of the torch metaphor to Hillary.

Thursday
There was a belief by some pundits that they saved their worst speakers for Thursday, sandbagging to make Hillary look great as a speaker. I don't know if that's true. I will say that the star power was not there, for sure. Chelsea Clinton was the first person most people would recognize. If you compare her speech to Ivanka Trump's speech, Ivanka's was much better. Chelsea's not a great speaker, but came off as pretty down-to-earth; Ivanka is Trump's best advocate -- she's smart, sharp, poised and probably the most "real" of his supporters. I'm not sure Chelsea's in the top 5 for Hillary. Chelsea did have more specific stories, whereas Ivanka spoke in generalities more often. But either way, you don't elect people based on how great their kids speak.

Here's a tip from someone who's covered a lot of speeches: Ignore the intros. They never say anything important in the first 3 minutes or so, beyond thanks and effusive praise for people. Ignore everything up until she mentions Philadelphia. After that, she talks about how people are trying to pull the country apart, but then used the word "together" three times in quick succession to describe her world view. She mentioned the national motto and essentially worked to use words echoing togetherness. Later, she mentioned her 1996 book, "It Takes A Village," referencing that she's not new to the idea of working together for progress/change. One of the best lines from this was, "Caring is not enough; to make real progress, you need to change both hearts and laws."

One of the more poetic lines was how Donald Trump had made "morning in America" seem like "midnight in America." The former was a line by Ronald Reagan. It was a subtle way of saying "Trump ain't Reagan." She made a few references to her faith and what she's learned from it. She spoke about Dallas cops as a way of saying "Trump's not the only one who cares about cops." For much of the speech, it was driven by anecdotes and references and big ideas, but few facts. And even at the end, there were practically no hard numbers used. That's my biggest criticism of this speech: Not a lot of numbers. She had one "grandma joke" -- Trump spoke for 70-odd minutes, and I do mean odd. That's a grandma joke if I've ever heard one.

But then the speech turned when she seemed to say that she's a detail person, and details matter. Let me save you 100+ words: Her speech had the things that I complained were missing in Trump's speech: She had policy specifics and talked about how to pay for them. It's what I look for from any speaker, and she had it and he didn't. If you think that's opinion, look at the transcripts. Do your research.

At one point, Alyson said "They're taking Republican rhetoric." That's what I'll take from this convention. Michelle and Barack Obama made the argument against Trump/for Hillary as a moral/ethical issue. Several speakers, including Hillary herself, used Reagan's words to seemingly (and literally at one point) say "You're no Reagan." She mentioned God three times in her speech (Trump: none) and she talked about how great the U.S. Armed Forces are (only one real mention by Trump). It reminded me of a line from my one year of debate: If you don't mention something, consider it a conceded point. Trump didn't mention many typical Republican things, and Democrats took up those banners.

Trump, Russia and More

Perhaps in an attempt to wrest back news coverage, Donald Trump on Wednesday morning literally called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails. To sum: A presidential nominee called on a foreign power to hack emails on another presidential nominee. When a reporter asked a follow-up on if that was appropriate (a completely fair question), Trump told the reporter to "Be quiet" because he knew she wanted to save Hillary.

When asked for clarification, Trump reiterated the statement. He also tweeted later that if Russia had the emails, they should turn them over to the FBI. Much later in the day, Trump did another interview and said it was a joke and he was being sarcastic. His spokesperson said it wasn't really a joke, he was just being tongue-in-cheek. I'm having a real hard time with this one. I generally try to take people at their word. I look for context and try to find the good. I'm struggling to agree with him that it was a joke and that wasn't just covering his hide. He was given several opportunities immediately after he said it to correct himself, and he didn't. He doubled down by saying a similar line on Twitter. Listen to the press conference yourself and tell me if that comes across as a joke. But putting my frustrations aside for a second, either he was humorously suggesting his political rival should be hacked by Russia, or he was serious. Which of those is better?

I was pretty upset about the Trump "joke" yesterday. It's the latest in his ever-changing stances on everything. Him calling it a joke didn't come out until late in the night, and I was looking for reactions from Republicans and more before then. Foxnews.com's mobile site had practically no mention of it through about 6 p.m. It was there, but buried in a story discussing his other statements at the press conference. Even Thursday morning, there was no story on the Trump joke at all on their main website. But there is a story about Trump hosting a Reddit AMA and another on two acrobats getting married. It's one thing to bury the story; it's another to not even mention it.

Summary Judgments

Here's Jeremy Toobin making many of the same points I made last week on the DNC emails. If I'm missing a smoking gun, please point it out to me. I just haven't seen anything that proves any bias, beyond reactions to Bernie accusations or suggestions that never made the final cut.  •  •  •  I want to thank those of you that read this blog. At some point in the last couple months, I've broken the 1,000 page views mark. We're currently at nearly 1,500 page views, all-time. I'm proud of that. I do have one question: In the last month, we have 15 views from Russia, 4 from France and 3 from Canada. I think I know the Canadians, but who are you folks from Russia and France? Just curious. Please comment or message me if that's you.  •  •  •  Hidden in Trump's wild press conference Wednesday was his vow not to release his tax returns. That's a break from 40 years of tradition. This is not insignificant.  •  •  •  There's been a lot of negative attention in the media, so let's take a moment to celebrate the good in the world. Thanks to the silliness of the Ice Bucket Challenge, there's been a gene breakthrough on ALS research.  •  •  •  The Chappelle's Show skit on Prince is confirmed!