Joe Biden's great speech
Wednesday August 27, 2008
Categories: Democrats
Here's the weird thing about Biden's speech. It's pretty good, and he speaks with more passion and conviction and natural ease than anybody I've yet heard in this convention. But he sounds like he's addressing a small hall, not the...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Romney can counterpunch just fine . . . and grin.
Veep neutralization; back to comparing the candidates for POTUS. On the merits.
I don't know, Rod--the speech didn't seem all that great to me. I agree that it seemed not to be pitched right, and also that if you really listened to the words, Biden wasn't saying much that was all that interesting--the speech was long on statement and short on eloquence. It will be enlightening to see what sound bites get pulled from it and run on the news.
I have to wonder, too, about whether Biden's emphasis on foreign policy helps or hurts Obama. On the one hand, Biden was put on the ticket in many ways to help make up for whatever shortcomings in terms of experience Obama has in re: foreign affairs, but on the other hand, it seemed from the somewhat muted applause and the occasional puzzled looks on some of the faces in the crowd that they weren't expecting such a heavy focus on possible military situations Obama might have to deal with (with Biden's help, of course).
He did speak with plenty of emphasis, which made a nice contrast from most of the speeches of last night.
Are we watching the same convention? I thought Biden was dreadful. My whole family was laughing out loud at his bloviating, while I was just wondering if he was trying to set a record for taking the Lord's name in vain on TV.
Kerry gave one of the least effective speeches I've ever heard, sounding like a man who doesn't realize his 2004 campaign has been completely forgotten.
Bill Clinton, meanwhile, whatever one thinks of the man, was brilliant. He showed again tonight why, aside from Ronald Reagan, he is the best communicator in American politics in the last 40 years.
It is a good thing Biden can speak from his heart because there is not much in his head.
Ok, now that the good line is done, the trick to dealing with someone like Biden is to lead him on, give him something to grab onto and then let his natural tendency to say something really stupid do the rest.
Speeches at political conventions are for the loyalists and the independents; they aren't designed to win over the opposition. They use red meat, they talk about stark differences, they create themes.
Biden's speech served the purpose of rallying the loyalists and persuading the persuadable. The conservative don't like it--or were laughing at it--doesn't ultimately matter.
There are times when convention speeches persuade the opposition or rally the opposition, but only rarely. Pat Buchanan's "culture war" speech in 1992 rallied the opposition against the GOP. Mary Matalin talks in her book how she thought it was a harmless, red meat Republican speech and was unfazed or alarmed. Carville said he realized Buchanan was declaring war and suddenly there was a significant shift in the race in favor or Clinton. Talk to liberals about 1992, and they will likely mention that speech as the one that shaped their political identity or purpose.
B-O-R-I-N-G.
All of them.
Hillary.
Michelle.
John.
Bill.
Joe.
(YMMV)
I really liked it when Biden called McCain a friend. He separated friendship from politics, which is a great hallmark of America. In the scorched politics of the late 90's and the last 7 years, we have focused on partisanship over the common good, and it has certainly failed us. Reagan never did that.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and apparently so is objective overviews of tonight's speeches by many who wish to claim the emperor is in fact naked.
To your points, Kerry was masterful and quite correct in my mind and persuasive, forceful, concise like a laser.
Bill Clinton was back to his old form. He did what he needed to do---to himself, for his wife, and most importantly for his party and Obama. A solid performance in the old Clinton mode that had seemed lost.
Beau Biden, Senator Joe's son, was stellar if not stunning. Delaware's att. General about to be deployed to Iraq? And so eloquent and loving as no son could be more. The story detail that his mother and the family were going to buy a Christmas tree when the truck killed his mother and sister, when he was four, made this hideous tale come real in my heart.
Then Joe. What a guy, what a speech, what a family, what a sincerely good American tough guy who softened up when he succeeded at 'getting up', over and over...from stuttering to the death of his family.
Not since I was a boy watching the 1960 convention that became Kennedy/Johnson have I stood up and applauded and even cried with all-American joy as I did tonight.
Catching a plane. Happy Labor Day.
You know that Biden told the truth about John McCain and that is why the Republicans will have trouble with him. McCain's record speaks for its self, McCain only cares about the money not the people.
McCain is against a living wage, equal pay for equal work, veterans, and the struggling, working American. His idea of a small business is on that makes millions while shipping jobs overseas.
I am an American Vet that is for Obama. I want an America that works with me not against me. I want my daughter to have a honest wage and work in a competitive America, not one that rewards the Wal-Marts of Corporate greed while limiting health benefits and denying pensions. McCain has voted agianst the enviroment every time and for enriching the oil companies. And McCain has repeatedly taken their money.
McCain is out of touch and should be out of work. I believe in America and I believe in Obama.
I thought Reagan was friendly with Tip O'Neill?
I used to kind of like watching political conventions, but I find them so dis-heartening and boring nowadays that I can't bring myself to do it anymore. I guess they serve some kind of purpose, but they are lost on me. I may tune in to see the grecian temple thing, though, as that sounded cool. Perhaps they can get those Chinese drummers from the opening ceremony of the Olympics, too, as they are likely out of a gig at this point.
"YMMV"
I'm sure I will be doing the same thing during the Pubs next week; after I gag, of course.
To save everyone else who didn't know from having to google it,
YMMV = your mileage may vary.
Good one.
Erin: He did speak with plenty of emphasis, which made a nice contrast from most of the speeches of last night.
Maybe that's why his speech seemed so effective to me, Erin; so many of the speeches at this convention have been so crummy. Biden sounded like a real person who really believed what he was saying, and believed it was important to convince the people listening to his speech that it was true. And, I dunno, I kind of like Biden. Usually gassiness in a politician is a real turn-off, but somehow, it makes him seem endearing and human to me. I can't explain it.
Unfortunately I missed Biden, having dozed off during Clinton.
But I want to read it. Whose speech did he give?
I agree that there's something weirdly likable about Joe Biden. In theory what he does shouldn't work, but in practice it does. Which makes it all the stranger that the Democrats' ticket is Robin-Batman '08 and not the other way round.
If I were being really precise I would say that the Democratic ticket is Speedy-Green Arrow '08, but I digress.
Hey,
I'm a new computer user and sometimes I get so excited about all the things there are to read that I just look at the pictures and go on to read the articles that pique my interest.Looking at the picture(and not reading the article or watching the video)Biden looks like he's very determined to get his message across(shaking his arm and his face is kind of red)Obama looks to me ,like he's thinking"I can sit back and relax a few minutes cause he's got it under control,thank you Joe!"Just my take on it .I'll see how I feel after I listen to his speech(if I do)
thanks,
cheryl3
You're behind the times, Rufus. Speedy is all grown up now. After working under the name Arsenal for awhile, he now goes by Red Arrow, as a tribute to his Native American heritage. Anyway, the more logical analogy in terms of a team-up would be the Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams Green Arrow/Green Lantern pairing, in which the duo walked off to look for America.
I can't find a Republican equivalent--unless maybe in the current megillah in the Marvel Universe, where it turns out that many well-known public figures were actually Skrulls.
sigaliris,
My first impulse was to revise my analogy to Aqualad-Green Arrow '08, but then I remembered that since Obama walks on water, he may not be able to swim.
Anyway, I was thinking of Speedy circa 1984, when he was the smooth-talking playah hitting on all the girls in The New Teen Titans.
As for Green Arrow, I meant any of his post-O'Neil-and-Adams iterations as the roguish loose-canon or loose-quiver of the DC Universe -- and also as a sort of Batman wannabe.
When it comes to the Republicans, I'd say McCain is probably the tongue-in-cheek constipated Batman that Frank Miller's doing right now in *All-Star Batman* -- "I'm the g-d Batman ... and, friends, I'd like to be your g-d President."
Assuming Mitt Romneyis the running mate, he will be either the Martian Manhunter or Red Tornado, take your pick. If it's Joe Lieberman, then the Atom. If it's Tim Pawlenty, then who cares?
I thought Biden's speech was the highlight of the evening -- Clinton's was OK and even good in places, but he didn't speak with nearly the same passion as Biden. Biden's impressive son, his adorable elderly mother, and his gorgeous wife all seemed to be showering sincere love on him. It was a great moment, even if he did go on a little bit too long.
I was familiar with the story about his tragic loss of his first wife and daughter, and I enjoyed hearing again about his commuting back and forth to Delaware every day on Amtrak. Biden seems like a real person, which is rare in politics today.
Wouldn't a much more apt analogy for Romney be Plastic Man?
Allen,
Good one ... though Plastic Man has a sense of humor!
I would hope that Biden or any sane statesman would remove Georgia and Ukraine from the list of future potential NATO allies. That's what he can do. Without the prospect of NATO membership, Georgia would not have done what they did providing Russia with cause (or perhaps a convenient excuse) to do what they did. But now the South Ossetians will NEVER reconcile with Georgia or trust them again (nor should they), and Georgia can kiss goodbye the real territorial integrity that they desire and had previously deserved.
So what now? Send in the humanitarian aid a while longer, back off on anchoring US warships in the Black Sea, then just LET IT BE. That's what Obama/Biden can do differently. I could never see McCain/Condi doing that, or not without months of bloviating and dangerous saber rattling first.
The hard core Democrats here will despise the source, but none other than Karl Rove has a piece in the Weekly Standard eviscerating Joe Biden's claims about Obama's "accomplishments" in the US Senate.
In summary, Obama tagged his name onto a Richard Lugar bill backed by the White House that established some minor administrative reporting requirements relating to nuclear proliferation. It passed on a routine voice vote and was so trivial that it wasn't reported on at the time in any media outlet. Biden described Obama's secondary role in this trivial and uncontroversial exercise as "reaching across the aisle" to pass "sweeping legislation."
Obama's supposed accomplishments on behalf of wounded veterans are even less substantive than that. He failed to get his bill out of a committee controlled by his fellow Democrats, and his campaign is brazenly taking credit for work done by Washington Post reporters to which Obama contributed nothing at all.
Puffery to this extreme will backfire on Obama and Biden. Guaranteed.
Can you really believe this! Joe Biden is so out of touch! He's on a ticket to be Vice President and can't get the facts together. It just goes to show you that the Democrats have no clue. They are opportunists and would do or say anything to get elected. Americans open your eyes and become educated voters. Obama and Biden offer answers to all of the worlds problems and as customary with Democrats, they will just throw money at it. The way to fix everything is just spend more of our tax dollars. Try and tune in Fox news and get the real story. The drive-by media won't tell you the truth because they are biased.
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