Disaster in Denver
You heard it here first: The Democratic Convention in Denver will go down as a disaster the likes of which have not been seen since Patrick Buchanan's 1992 speech to Republicans in Houston. It's hard to know what Senator Obama was thinking. After returning from speaking to a large outdoor rally in Germany, he headed to Hawaii for a vacation. Meanwhile, the candidate of "change" somehow managed to allow the first night of his convention to be dominated by Senator Kennedy, who ran for president in 1980 and who has been in the Senate since 1962.
Mr. Obama allowed the second night to be dominated by the candidate he defeated for the nomination, Senator Clinton, who has been on the national stage since her husband was elected president in 1992. He allowed the third night to be dominated by President Clinton, who has been on the national stage since he gave the convention speech nominating Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Mr. Clinton's speech last night had its share of howlers. There was the attack on Republicans for "unlimited favors for the well-connected" — this from a president who rented out the Lincoln Bedroom and was trailed by favor-seekers and cronies throughout his presidency. There was the by-now tiresome reprise of the economic wonders of the Clinton presidency. While Mr. Clinton was introduced by the theme song "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," a better tune might have been the Beatles' "Yesterday."
Mr. Clinton's rousing conclusion was to tell voters that back in 1992, Republicans tried to paint him as "too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief." "Sound familiar?" Mr. Clinton asked. The suggestion that Mr. Obama might be another Bill Clinton might be appealing to Mr. Clinton — for the Clintons, it is all about them — but it's totally out of tune with Mr. Obama's theme of "change." As out of tune as Mr. Obama's selection of a running mate, in Senator Biden, who has been a senator for 35 years. Mr. Biden was serving as a senator back when Senator McCain was still a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
What's more, there are Clinton-like elements of Mr. Obama that voters may yet find unattractive. Where Mr. Clinton had a real estate deal with felon Jim McDougal, Mr. Obama had one with Tony Rezko. Mr. Clinton stressed that "a President Obama will choose diplomacy first," but Mr. Clinton's aversion to the use of military force allowed Al Qaeda to gather strength to attack America.
Meanwhile, our Seth Gitell reports from Denver that Mrs. Clinton's supporters are openly and publicly warning that today's outdoor acceptance speech extravaganza by Mr. Obama, complete with a performance by a rap star, may backfire. "It worries me," a Clinton lawyer, Lanny Davis, told Mr. Gitell. "Having rock star concert crowds and uplifting rhetoric doesn't work with working class voters ... Shots of 200,000 mesmerized people in Berlin didn't help his campaign." A congressman from Boston, Stephen Lynch, told Mr. Gitell that senior citizen voters are "not big with the celebrity stuff." It certainly didn't work for Senator Kerry.
Mr. Clinton assured the crowd last night about Mr. Obama that "When he cannot convert adversaries into partners he will stand up to them." Mr. Obama clearly couldn't stand up to the Clintons. Even after he clinched the nomination, he allowed them to dominate the convention. If he can't stand up to the Clintons, how is he going to handle America's enemies around the world? And if he can't run a successful political convention, how can he run the country?
