Our long national nightmare is over. Below, some brief thoughts on Day 4 of the DNC. 1) What a spectacle! It must be acknowledged that whoever thought of putting on this show at Invesco knew what they were doing. Oh, how we mocked the decision to move the coronation to a stadium and what fun we had making fun of the Greek columns. But who’s laughing now? Throughout the 1980’s, the left whined about Michael Deaver’s and Ronald Reagan’s mastery of political stagecraft. They would insist it had nothing to with actually governing. Well, my friends, it is now our turn to whine. While I didn’t think the speech was particularly super, the night as a whole was super. Obama should receive some significant albeit ephemeral bounce-age as a result of the evening’s grandness which was exciting, and I’m sure to many inspirational. 2) Regarding the speech, I agree completely with Jonathan Last’s assessment that this was decidedly second rate Obama. He’s done much better in the past. What made the speech odd, especially by Obama standards, was its occasional stridency. His crude attacks on John McCain were unbecoming for the world’s foremost apostle of hope and change. And as Matthew Continetti noted, the speech was strangely defensive. The insistence that he, too, “puts country first” was particularly noteworthy in this regard. Regardless of the speech’s mediocrity, last night was a spectacularly successful evening for the Democrats. The Obama movement picked up steam. Still, there’s this – the speech itself wasn’t effective enough to reach the swing voters who will decide the election. So while Obama will enjoy a bounce, the long term dynamics of the race remain unchanged. Obama had an opportunity to close the sale last night with at least some voters – he didn’t get the job done. 3) Now for the really important stuff – After Obama was done uplifting the crowd, the music kicked in. Oddly, it was the song “Only in America” by the country duo Brooks & Dunn. Brooks & Dunn have always been Republicans – they even played at the 2004 RNC if I recall correctly. Is it possible they changed their tune? Or, as seems more likely, did the DNC have to raid the music catalogue of one of the few Republican-supporting acts to find a thematically appropriate selection? With all the Democrats in the music business, couldn’t they have found one song by a lefty that fit the moment? Perhaps they were worried that if they played John Mellencamp’s “Pink Houses” or Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” someone would actually listen to the lyrics.
