"I have spoken to many of you and you have questions about what to do. You want to vote according to what is in your heart. I am not going to tell you what to do. You have come from different places and made a long journey.
"I cast my vote for Senator Obama this morning."
Andrew Sullivan says Hillary "did the minimum." That isn't enough. Ezra Klein laid out the case for what is wrong with the convention.
Say what you will about the 2004 Convention, it had a theme. Conversely, the first night of the 2008 Democratic Convention had Michelle Obama bring the warm and fuzzies, Ted Kennedy calling forth tears and hankies, and Jim Leach speaking quietly and pedantically without any serious promotion from the Obama campaign. The second night of the 2004 Convention saw Barack Obama tearing apart the arena. In 2008, we had Mark Warner with a well-crafted speech that fell flat because it was an attack structure that refused to name the politician it was attacking. You had Hillary Cinton giving a powerful address, but it was an address that was broadly aimed at problems in the Democratic Party, not the problems with the Republican Party.
Barack Obama has an allergic reaction to negative campaigning. That is the worst thing to do against a McCain campaign run by Karl Rove accolades. The Democratic National Convention was a chance for Obama to come out with a bounce. Now the Obama campaign will play defense from attacks from the Republican National Convention. Obama learned nothing from the Clinton impeachment and Swift Boat attacks. David Kurtz explains that the Obama change campaign is resistant to change.
But I think its ambivalence about doing so is less a result of the Democrats' historical tendency to fritter away opportunities because of fear and trepidation, and more because the Obama campaign spent tens of millions over a year and a half to build Obama's sterling reputation and they are afraid of breaking it. It's different from what hobbled Dukakis and Kerry, but the outcome could be the same.
Lofty rhetoric and feel good messages don't win elections. Especially, when one's opponent is beating him to death with a sledgehammer.
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