President Barack Obama just finished officially accepting the Democratic nomination for president. Normally I am not a fan of his speaking style, but that was one of his best performances in my opinion–better than the celebrated “Yes We Can.” Given how well Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton did earlier this week, I will be surprised if Obama doesn’t get a bump out of this convention. However, I don’t know what the television ratings have been like this week. Far fewer people watched this year’s Republican convention than in 2008.
Any comments about the presidential election are welcome in this thread. I’ll update the post later with more links related to the Iowa delegation and other speeches in the convention hall today. UPDATE: Links and clips are now after the jump.
This morning, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar spoke to Iowa Democrats over breakfast. She denied having plans to run for president and got in a few good digs at Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
“I love my job right now,” Klobuchar told a hefty contingent of reporters (Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN, the Virginia Pilot, Charlotte Observer, Politico, National Journal, BBC and others) who came to listen for hints of 2016 ambitions from today’s speakers. “As I was explaining in there, we don’t have many women in the Senate. We have 17 and we’re going to be down to 15. We’re going in the wrong direction.” […]
“Do we really want to put a guy in the White House, who on his first trip as a candidate to London, right? First trip internationally, before he even puts two feet on the ground, he puts one foot in his mouth and creates an internatonal incident with one of our allies at the Olympics?” […]
“You know what we call that in Minnesota?” Klobuchar said. “We call a Mittstake.”
UPDATE: Forgot to mention that U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand also spoke to the Iowa group Thursday morning and told the Des Moines Register, “I am going to be the chairperson of the Hillary Clinton 2016 fan club.”
Iowan Zach Wahls was one of several speakers who touched on the theme of LGBT equality before prime-time. Wahls is the son of lesbian moms who became famous for his remarks at an Iowa House public hearing on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He told the crowd in Charlotte:
“People want to know what it’s like having lesbian parents. I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m awesome at putting the seat down. Otherwise, we’re like any other family,” Wahls said Thursday. “Mr. Romney, my family is just as real as yours.”
Radio Iowa posted more highlights and audio from Wahls’ speech here.
Other speakers had more pointed words for Romney later in the evening. Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm:
“He loves our cars so much, they have their own elevator,” she said. “But the people who design, build and sell those cars? Well, in Romney’s world, the cars get the elevator; the workers get the shaft.”
Romney’s position on the auto bailout has never been crystal clear, but during the campaign he’s argued that he would have rescued Detroit but at a much lower cost by using private sector funds to prop it up.
Granholm said that this was a fantasy: No bank of any kind was about to loan tens of billions of dollars to a flagging industry while the banks themselves were on the verge of being sucked under by a financial meltdown.
“The entire auto industry, and the lives of over 1 million hard-working Americans, teetered on the edge of collapse and with it, the whole manufacturing sector,” she said. “We looked everywhere for help. Almost nobody had the guts to help us, not the banks, not the private investors and not Bain Capital. Then, in 2009, the cavalry arrived: our new president, Barack Obama!”
U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry:
“We’ve all learned Mitt Romney doesn’t know much about foreign policy,” Kerry said. “But he has all these neocon advisers who know all the wrong things about foreign policy. He would rely on them – after all, he’s the great outsourcer.” […]
“It isn’t fair to say Mitt Romney doesn’t have a position on Afghanistan – he has every position,” Kerry said. “He was against setting a date for withdrawal, then he said it was right and then he left the impression that maybe it was wrong to leave this soon. He said it was ‘tragic’ to leave Iraq, and then he said it was fine. He said we should’ve intervened in Libya sooner. Then he ran down a hallway to duck reporters’ questions. Then he said the intervention was too aggressive. Then he said the world was a ‘better place’ because the intervention succeeded.” […]
“Mr. Romney – here’s a little advice,” he said. “Before you debate Barack Obama on foreign policy, you better finish the debate with yourself!”
He went on to criticize Romney for opposing Obama’s nuclear arms treaty with Russia, which was backed by an array of former Republican Secretaries of State, and for labeling the nation America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Kerry argued actions like these reflected an antiquated Cold War mentality.
“Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska,” he said. “Mitt Romney talks like he’s only seen Russia by watching ‘Rocky IV.'” […]
Romney raised eyebrows in his own speech by failing to mention Afghanistan, and Kerry seized on that point.
“No nominee for president should ever fail in the midst of a war to pay tribute to our troops overseas in his acceptance speech,” he said. “Mitt Romney was talking about America. They are on the front lines every day defending America, and they deserve our thanks.”
I missed most of today’s speeches but tuned in to see Dr. Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden, and President Obama. I usually enjoy hearing Biden speak, but his remarks didn’t stand out for me. NPR posted the whole transcript here. This was the highlight in my opinion.
Folks, Governor Romney believes it’s OK to raise taxes on middle classes by $2,000 in order to pay for another – literally another trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy. President Obama knows that there’s nothing decent or fair about asking people with more to do less and with less to do more. (Scattered cheers.)
Governor Romney believes – he believes that kids, kids like our “DREAMers” – those immigrant children – (cheers, applause) – those immigrant children who were brought to America’s shores through no fault of their own – he thinks they’re a drag on the American economy. President Obama believes that even though those “DREAMers,” those kids, didn’t choose to come here, they have chosen to do right by America. And it’s time for us to do right by them. (Extended cheers, applause.)
Governor Romney – Governor Romney – Governor Romney – Governor Romney looks at the notion of equal pay in terms of a company’s bottom line. President Obama – he knows that making sure our daughters get the same pay for the same jobs as our son is every father’s bottom line. (Cheers, applause.)
Look, I kind of expected all that from him. But one thing truly perplexed me at their convention. The thing that perplexed me most was this idea they kept talking about about the culture of dependency. They seem to think you create a culture of dependency when you provide a bright, young, qualified kid from a working-class family a loan to get to college or when you provide a job training program in a new industry for a dad who lost his job because it was outsourced.
Folks – folks, that’s not how we look at it. That’s not how America’s ever looked at it. (Applause.) What he doesn’t understand is all these men and women are looking for is a chance, just a chance to acquire the skills to be able to provide for their families so they can once again hold their heads high and lead independent lives with dignity. That’s all they’re looking for. (Cheers, applause.)
Look – and it literally amazes me they don’t understand that. You know, I told you the outset the choice is stark, two different visions, two different value sets. But at its core, the difference is able to reduced (sic) to be a fundamental difference.
The transcript of the president’s speech is here. He had lines pandering to every Democratic base constituency, but his main agenda was to hammer home the theme of this election as “a choice between two different paths for America. A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.” One of my favorite passages:
Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan. And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years:
“Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.”
“Deficit too high? Try another.”
“Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!”
More news from the Iowa delegation: U.S. Representatives Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Leonard Boswell (IA-03) skipped the convention and were the only Iowa delegates absent during the official roll call. In contract, Representative Bruce Braley (IA-01) was there. I assume that means only Braley believes that closely linking himself to the president will help his re-election campaign.
O.Kay Henderson interviewed two of the older delegates from Iowa, and Cecelia Smith interviewed the youngest, who is only 17 years old.
Final note on convention media coverage: I got a kick out of this post showing how Sandra Fluke was identified by the cable news networks during her speech on Wednesday evening. MSNBC: “Women’s Health Advocate.” Fox News: “Georgetown Law School Graduate.” CNN: “The Woman Criticized by Rush Limbaugh.”