Conventions Are Boring
Maybe watching so many Barack Obama speeches over the last year has spoiled me. But 99% of political speeches are boring! The fact that conventions are televised at all is kind of amazing.

Criticizing Bush
In his keynote address, Mark Warner said, “People always ask me, ‘What’s your biggest criticism of President Bush?’ I’m sure you all have your own. Here’s mine: It’s not just the policy differences. It’s the fact that this president never tapped into our greatest resources — the character and resolve of the American people.”

Really? That’s your biggest criticism of Bush? Some missed opportunities? What about torturing people? What about holding them in an offshore prison without charging them with a crime? What about politicized hiring in the Justice Department? What about a strategically, tactically and morally idiotic war?

It’s speeches like this that make people think that when Obama says “post-partisan,” it’s code for vague. Warner’s speech proved that this isn’t a criticism that’s native to the Obama candidacy but one that attaches itself to a certain politician, the wanna-be-JFK, can’t-we-all-just-get-along, young, idealistic would-be change agent.

Criticizing specific policies is not partisan; it’s standing up for what you believe in.

Contrarian Argument of the Day
I don’t think there was a single speech that didn’t contain the phrase “end our dependence on foreign oil.” This is one of those tricky phrases that is all things to all people. It plays into conservatives national security fears while hitting liberals’ environmental fears. It’s also protectionist and vaguely xenophobic. Undoubtedly, ending our dependence on oil will help us in more ways than one. But I’d like to offer a thesis: our dependence on foreign oil has its upside.

If we’re dependent on foreign oil, then foreign oil is also, to a certain extent, dependent on us. If we stop buying oil from the Middle East, oil prices will plummet. This gives oil-producing countries a disincentive to attack us or to be linked to terrorist threats to us. It also gives the U.S. a disincentive to attack Middle Eastern countries.

Megan McArdle has a pretty good point about how unrealistic this plan is.

Obama’s Speech
I don’t think this was the best speech Obama’s ever given (his 2004 convention speech, New Hampshire concession speech, and “race speech” were better). It was about ten minutes too long and a bit anti-climactic. But it was still pretty good and easily the best speech of the convention (only Bill Clinton’s came close).

Obama sounded best when he was on the defensive — not in a traditional sense, like John Kerry would be, but in a very forceful way. To mock McCain for his “celebrity” charge was just the right note to hit. He took on both the patriotism and the inexperienced charges forcefully.

After reading The New York Times Magazine’s excellent piece on Obama’s economic policy, I’m convinced that Obama’s tax plan will be one of his strongest arguments in the election. The section on his tax plan in the speech was great — short, to the point, and forceful.

There were, however, a few contradictions in Obama’s speech. For one, he said that he wouldn’t attack John McCain’s character, only his ideas. This, of course, is ridiculous. He had just said five minutes before that John McCain didn’t “get it,” referring to his economic policies. His argument was that McCain is wrong on the economy because he’s stupid. How is that not personal?

But maybe politics should be personal. After all, many of the problems we face in the next eight years will be unforeseen ones that the candidates have yet to write position papers on. When picking a president, you can’t help but think about a candidate’s integrity, honesty, and problem-solving abilities. These are all personal characteristics.

Speaking of things personal, every time the four Obama’s were onstage together I got choked up. I’m not really know why. I’ve taken for granted the fact that Obama is black and is the nominee for a long time, but to see the look in Sasha’s eyes, beaming before a crowd of tens of thousands, missing about three teeth… she seemed so happy, so full of hope. The historical nature of the moment really set in.

–Hillel Aron

P.S. Twitter Trumps Blogs
This was the first political event where twittering was more important than blogging. Some of the best online political commentators, including John Dickerson of Slate, Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic, and Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, twittered throughout, Could Twitter be making liveblogging obsolete?

Photo by jurvetson