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I Expected Better: The Bill Clinton Story

Maybe, Emily, I didn't see Bill Clinton's speech the way you did because I actually expected him to do Barack Obama some good tonight. But then, that I expected better of him is an old, old story.

History was made in the Pepsi Center this evening, when William Jefferson Clinton arrived on schedule. I would not say that Michelle Obama twinkled at the sight of him ... and could not say whether Hillary did, because there was a lady waving a flag standing in front of her. But before too long, I was remembering why I voted for Ralph Nader in 1996. Back then, Clinton had the political capital to get a much better welfare reform bill but cared more about himself than all those down-on-their-luck Americans he was always biting his lip over. Tonight, he had the chance to make a much better pitch for Barack Obama. But again, instead, forever and what else is new, talked about how much better things were when he was president.

Who was it again that he was referring to when he said Obama "has the intelligence and curiosity every [emphasis his] successful president needs''? Or helpfully pointed out that he and Hillary have made Obama the candidate he is today: "The long primary tested and strengthened him.'' Oh, and not to worry because "he will continue and enhance our nation's commendable global leadership in an area in which I [emphasis his again] am deeply involved—the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.''

Though every word he said about how much better off we were when he was president was true, of course, I hadn't realized that burnishing his legacy was the point of the exercise. He had the crowd going bananas before he ever opened his presidential beak, and one of the lines they loved best was, "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.''  Woohoo, true again. But how that moves one voter to Obama I'm sure I don't know.

"America can do better'' than it has under Bush. "And Barack Obama will do better.'' Really? That is one weak offense, Bubba. And the old hound dog did not exactly rip John McCain's head off, either, going on and on about how his wife's former drinking buddy loves this country and sure suffered in Hanoi. The best I could give him would be a gentleman's "C''. But at the moment, I am too mad to manage it.

What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

Bill, the original stickler for exact language, manages to give a roaring, inspiring endorsement of Obama without entirely selling out his wife: "Barack Obama is the man for this job."

[Emphasis mine. Just sayin'.] 

Bill's Night

Hillary's Moonstruck Moment

Regrets Only

Hillary did give a good speech—with the clear subtext that she should be giving it Thursday night, not tonight, and look what has been lost by her not being the nominee. She was strong and commanding and convincing. And then the camera cut to the face of Bill Clinton, all teary-eyed, lip-biting, suffused-with-love-for-his-woman, and I thought, “Sorry, Hillary, we just couldn’t go there again.” After she spent all the time she did tracing women’s suffrage and what a world-historical figure she was, she rejected the obvious next move of mentioning that this year’s Democratic nominee is similarly a figure of history. She could have then segued into saying something, anything, about the specific qualities of Barack Obama. You’re right, Dahlia; it’s ultimately up to Obama to sell himself. But with the race right now looking as tight as it is, a bunch of put-out PUMAs could be a mighty big problem.  

Orange Crush

Hillary Clinton crushed tonight. Performed the pants off Mark Warner and Bob Casey and Deval Patrick and even the bolo-tied Brian Schweitzer -- who almost stole the show by mere virtue of the fact that unlike most of tonight’s speakers, he didn’t appear to be battery-operated. Clinton was as compelling, persuasive and commanding as we’ve come to expect. The fact that she ran circles around the men tonight reminded me why the glass ceiling with the 18 million cracks in it really is poised to shatter. I can’t recall a woman rocking a convention like that, ever.

It’s true. She talked about herself a lot. I think she’s earned every minute of that. Clinton made the case for why we “don’t need four more years of the last eight years” and why Americans work too hard, and have endured too much to suffer through more failed leadership. The mutual respect between her and Michelle Obama was nice to see. Like Emily, I could have wished she had made the case for Barack Obama as Barack Obama, beyond a fleeting reference to his early work in Chicago and the general claim that he is not John McCain. But then I can’t imagine being able to stand up and pay homage to a guy who destroyed my dream of a lifetime, either. Let’s give her credit for doing what she had to do: She lit up the crowd (and not a moment too soon) she reminded her supporters of the real stakes here; and she stuck a shrimp fork in John McCain’s eye enough times to really hurt a guy. So she didn’t sell the country on Obama. If he can’t manage to do that for himself, he’s got bigger problems than a bunch of put-out PUMAs.

Hillary's Cinderella Moment

I thought Hillary did a great job tonight. I liked how enthusiastic she seemed about Obama and the Democratic Party generally. She didn't have that extreme tightness she gets in her face sometimes when she's saying things she clearly doesn't believe. And Melinda, you're totally right that she pumped up Obama by delivering a healthy dose of old-fashioned motherly chiding: "Did you get all energized just for me, or did you care also about the young marine, or the single mother with cancer raising children?" (to paraphrase).  It was the best kind of guilt trip, one that's less about the guilt than about restoring you to your original sense of mission. Still, I wish that she had been even more explicit than she was: for example, why not address the McCain ad head on and say, "Make no mistake: I expect my supporters to go out to go out and vote for Obama in November."

For, boy, did Hillary's speech not have an effect on the female Clinton-loving delegate CNN interviewed afterward, who was so focused on her own sense of loss she clearly didn't give two flying pigs about anyone else's. Cancer-ridden mother, be damned. This delegate cried, huffed, and puffed about the fact that Obama won the nomination; her partner's fingers kept creeping up onto her right shoulder in anxiety. She was so worked up that I felt puzzled watching her: Is there something wrong with me? Why don't I find Hillary's loss to Obama that upsetting? I consider myself a feminist, for God's sake. But I just don't see her loss as a blow to feminism, I suppose. After all, Hillary got further than many candidates do—including many male runners-up. I suppose you could say she has more experience than Obama and should clearly be our candidate, as this woman was arguing. But experience hasn't always won in the past. And the fact that it didn't this time doesn't mean that her gender is to blame. I guess I see the cup as half-full. I also can't bring myself to feel that the "PUMA" movement is at all useful in a feminist way; it seems like special pleading.

Though I did have that old twinge of excitement at seeing Hillary in the mix. And yes, Melinda, I loved that pumpkin suit! And the makeup! (Even though I felt guilty about noticing it. I rarely care how male politicians look—though I do find myself scanning Obama in similar ways. What's that about?) Meanwhile, I was so put off by CNN's relentless focus on "women" in the audience (punctuated by shots of Bill Clinton, who looked like a cat in the cream when his presidency was mentioned) that I distracted myself by reading some outlandish metaphors into Clinton's outfit: If she couldn't be Cinderella in this story, she'll be the pumpkin that's turned into a carriage, and she'll get Barack—her Cinderfella—to that inaugural ball. If only she can get her supporters to agree to this version of the fairy tale.

But Enough About Me ...

When Hillary asked in her speech tonight, "Were you in it just for me?" she crystallized for me why I wasn't behind her. I think if you are in it just for her, you're kind of throwing away the election for the Democrats. Hillary has always been polarizing—a lightning rod for right-wingers to organize, unite, and crusade against. Putting her at the head of the ticket would have been suicide for the Democratic Party. What she would have achieved for women becoming the first woman candidate for president would likely have cost the Democrats the election, unfortunately. And that's just not something at this point in history I, for one, am willing to risk. (Which is exactly the point she seemed to be making--that there's too much at stake right now not to unite as a party for this election--now that she's out of the race.)

That said, I thought she gave a good speech, and it was precisely because she asked the question "Were you in it just for me?" She appealed to her supporters to look beyond their own grudges and look out for the greater good of the party. She did what she needed to do to be the unity candle. I just could have done without so much of her own personal campaign catharsis. I'm glad she learned a lot, and now I'm sure her supporters feel better, having been acknowledged. But let's get on with the uniting part of it. Please, let the pity party be over.

Clinton Code Orange

The fire-bright shade of orange Hillary picked to wear tonight must lie directly across the color wheel from the particular shade of punched-up blue that flanked the DNC podium. The contrast couldn't have been sharper. And I thought Hillary couldn't have been sharper, in her presentation, in her poise, in her tribute video. She was great. She just wasn't great for Barack Obama.

Here's where I felt it: "Were you in it for me?" she asked her supporters. "Or were you in it for" the young Marine, the mother struggling to make ends meet, etc. Good, that justified the minutes she'd just spent on real-people stories. Then I waited for the turn, for her to say: Because this election isn't about me. Now, it's about Barack Obama. He will make your lives better in the ways I wanted to do and would have done. Because he is ready to lead the American people. He will take us where we need to go. And now you need to be in this election for him, and so for yourselves.

OK, I don't have a future as a speech writer. But that was the mark she should have hit harder and didn't, wasn't it? She got close for a second with, "before we keep going, we've got to get going, by electing Barack Obama!" That was the kind of line she was up there to deliver. There should have been more of them. By the end, the orange was starting to look red to me, as in Scarlet O'Hara red--the bright color you wear to the party you had to be brave to come to. Dahlia, you said that Michelle Obama was brave last night. I thought that Hillary was brave tonight. But not, also, giving enough to hand to her former opponent everything he may need.

Listen to the Woman: "To My Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits ...''

Props to the lady in the electric pumpkin pantsuit. Because as Barack Obama's mama used to tell him, a little guilt is good for you. And Mama Hillary spelled that out again tonight, signaling to her people with all the subtlety of her bright orange outfit that if they want to leave her sitting home alone in the dark while they go running after that John McCain, well that's fine, no problem at all, really, because she's hardly done anything for them—other than work her heart out for 35 years. Oh, and it's only the FUTURE OF THE WORLD at stake: "I haven't spent the last 35 years in the trenches, advocating for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents balance work and family, and fighting for women's rights here at home and around the world, to see another Republican in the White House ... No way, no how, no McCain.'' Are we clear? "Were you in this campaign just for me?'' Nooooo, you were better than that, surely? "This won't be easy; progress never is. But it will be impossible unless we put a Democrat in the White House.'' Any questions? She was gracious to Michelle Obama, generous to Joe Biden and the first to lay a finger on John McCain: "In 2008, he still thinks it's OK that women don't earn equal pay ... With an agenda like that, it's no wonder George W. Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities next week; it's awfully hard to tell them apart ... We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare ...'' Case closed.

Talkin' Bout My Generation

I have a strange soft spot for Michelle Obama, largely because she was born in 1964, the year I was born, and because she reminds me of women I knew in college. Our generation of women were not the first to get to the Ivy League. We had a different cross to bear: We were the first to be treated as absolutely ordinary there. As Michelle's infamous senior thesis attests, some felt a residual need to rebel against the old institution anyway, struggled with the idea of themselves as "insiders," or attempted to remain "outsiders" for just a bit longer.

But most, obviously including Michelle, adjusted and moved on. All of which is a roundabout way of agreeing with Dahlia and Dana that this was a brilliant speech precisely because it avoided the sometimes grating language that Hillary might have used, and precisely because it was in fact post-feminist rather than feminist: The perfect way to address her/my generation is not to brag about how we got there first (because we didn't) but to talk honestly about the myriad ways in which we've tried or failed or managed to adjust, having arrived. Which she did, rather well. 

All of that stuff about how parents try to set good examples for children was particularly well done, from Michelle as well as her brother and mother, and somehow not sick-making, as these things at conventions usually are. There, laid out for us, was an example of parents who persuaded their children to adopt their values: Would that we all could be so succesful in doing so.

First Lady-like

Au contraire, Emily: I think we should be mopping our brows with relief that Michelle Obama's speechwriters (or did she write it herself?) avoided the merest hint of sisterhood-is-powerful language or Hillary-identification in her speech. Sure, as a feminist it would have been satisfying to see her raise a fist in solidarity, but let's face it, this speech wasn't aimed at the likes of us. Her target, which she nailed with impressive deftness, was that vague, elusive and maddening clump of the electorate that still somehow finds Obama's wife too aggressive and scary and un-first ladylike, what with the fist-bumping and the Harvard degree and the actual opinions on policy.

Watching her bat 1.000 in every conventional first lady category--for God's sake, she's beautiful, stylish, charming, poised, maternal and warm, leaving aside for the moment her obvious accomplishments and intellect--I wanted to call up these waffling bozos in person and harass them. She's Jackie Kennedy with a working-class back story! What else do you want from the woman? Emily's remark about the speech's race subtext can't help but ring sadly true: If you don't like Michelle Obama after this speech, do you like any flavor of ice cream besides vanilla?

So That's What Brave Looks Like . . .

What I loved best about Michelle Obama's speech tonight was that it was fearless, but in a very different way from the fearlessness modeled by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. Here is a woman with a degree from Harvard Law School, who could have talked about law and policy and poverty, and yet she talked about her kids, her husband, and her family. And she didn't do that merely to show us that smart women are soft and cuddly on the inside. She did what everyone else in this campaign is terrified to do: She risked looking sappy and credulous and optimistic when almost everyone has abandoned "hope" and "change" for coughing up hairballs of outrage. Every Democrat in America seems to be of the view that optimism is so totally last February; that now's the time to hunker down and panic real hard. Good for Michelle for reminding us that to "strive for the world as it should be" is still cool, and for being so passionate about that fact that she looked to be near tears. Good for her for speaking from the heart when everyone else seems to be speaking from the root cellar. And if that doesn't persuade you the woman is a warrior, let me just add that true bravery is letting your 7-year-old turn the first night of the Democratic Convention into open-mic night with the big screen and the party frock. Think any man alive would have done that? Me neither.   

Michelle's Marks

Michelle's master aim tonight: to knit herself to the American dream, the American story. How many times did she use those phrases? Her mother helped, with "I got to stay home with my kids," and her pursed proud mouth, listening in the crowd.  Her handsome brother did, too, with his tales of her playing the piano to get him downstairs before a big basketball game. And those gorgeous girls of hers, telling the image of their dad on a huge TV screen that their mom did good. (Primetime Family Reality TV: I imagined my boys up there, one of whom might have been tempted to imagine the crowd as a mosh pit and dive, and let out a sigh of relief for Michelle when they gave up the mike.) The message was that this is a beautiful family and yet a real family. The subtext: if you still don't like them, is it just because they're black?

Michelle's second aim was slightly less successful, I think: to stand up for women's rights and concerns and in so doing to stand in for Hillary. Invoking the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage was good. So was calling out HIllary by name as a kind of American hero. But this wasn't where the passion in the speech lay. That went into the lines about being a sister, wife, mother, and into Michelle's evocation of her father. Maybe that's just fine, because it's what more of the country is listening for. And certainly it was too much to ask Michelle to single-handedly head off the much-rumored irate Hillary supporters. But if I can quibble with a woman who pulled off electrifying sincerity in her big moment, I wanted one more moment in coded feminist-speak, for the other sisters.

Also in Slate: John Dickerson examined Michelle Obama's big moment.

Teddy's Season of Hope

In August of 1980, I watched Teddy Kennedy's convention speech from the basement of a Holy Cross retreat house in Colorado Springs, where a bunch of us who had just graduated from Notre Dame and had signed up to spend a service year working in inner city schools and neighborhoods and parishes across the country were getting together for a few days before heading off to our various assignments. Nothing against Jimmy Carter, but I doubt there was a single one of us who hadn't been pulling for Kennedy that year, and he spoke directly to us and made us cry but also filled us with hope:

And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith.

May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.

And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are—

One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

Tonight, watching him walk and talk a little haltingly, and listening to him quote from that 1980 speech, how could anyone not be torn up and yet thrilled, too, all over again, that his work and ours really does go on. There he was, battling brain cancer and yet showing up, not quite steady on his feet but still passionate about universal health care, uncertain of his own future but still so confident in ours, truly passing the torch not just to Barack Obama, but to all of us: "I pledge I will be there next January,'' to vote for health care reform, he said. "For me, this is a season of hope .. the work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.''

Not to the Wall but Through the Wall

Some people just still don't buy that Michael Phelps won the 100-meter fly by a razor-thin one-hundredth of a second. Even Slate's own Will Saletan is skeptical, wondering if the sensitivity of the touch pads came into play. I've got to respectfully disagree.

I was an extremely amateur swimmer—the highest championships I made it to were zones, not nationals—but I've been to my fair share of meets and slammed into many a touch pad. Saletan writes, "It's not who touches first. It's who triggers the sensor first." The problem is he's making a distinction that does not exist in the sport. In swimming parlance, whoever triggers the sensors IS who touched first—the person who touches hard enough to stop the clock first via the touch pad. (No one goes around saying they got "sensor-triggered" out. They say they got "touched out.") There's no photo finish in swimming (and I realize they can reconstruct high-level races with photos in extreme cases like this, but the photos are backup; the touch pad determines the winner), nor does anyone care if you lightly brush the pad first. If you don't hit it hard enough to stop the clock first, you lose.

I can assure you that gliding to a finish, as every swimmer at that level knows, can be the kiss of death. I knew it at age 12, so I'm pretty confident that someone at Cavic's level of expertise knows it. Maybe he thought he didn't have enough room for a half-stroke (and Phelps, who took a chance in taking an extra half-stroke, took the right one); maybe he thought that half-stroke would cost him time or that he was far enough ahead to be first with one last full stroke. Saletan asks if Cavic "had realized how much pressure was required [to stop the touchpad], would he have shortened his stroke as Phelps did, trying to trigger the sensor first, instead of trying to touch the wall first?" In addition to there being no distinction between "trigger" and "touch," I can guarantee that Cavic most definitely was "trying to trigger the sensor first," even if he didn't know how many kilograms per square centimeter were required to do so. There's a reason the saying about finishing a race in swimming is to go "Not to the wall but through the wall." Cavic just didn't make the same smart decision to hit the wall at full velocity that Phelps did, and it cost him.

This type of loss in not uncommon in swimming—Darra Torres lost the gold this Olympics by one one-hundredth of a second herself in the 50 freestyle—and the touch pads measure to thousandths of a second for a reason (to ensure accuracy for the hundredths of a second that the times will be recorded in). Sometimes you just get touched—or sensor-triggered or however you want to say it—out, end of story.

Hillary Clinton Needs You To Behave

"If anything, the country shows every sign of yearning for Clintonism as a governing idea now as much as it ever has."

                                                           -- Mark Penn, today in Politico

So I guess the Politico called Mark Penn and said hey, cowboy, we've got some rope over here that would look real good around your neck if you're up for one of those do-it-yourselfers...and of course, he couldn't resist. The result being this piece, Clintonism Lives, which I'm fairly sure was not intended as self-parody. But the fact that the guy who masterminded Hillary Clinton's campaign into a ditch still doesn't get that this is not the week for an apologia should be a cautionary tale for other Clinton fans: They will be judged on the extent to which your grudges are on display in Denver - which is why I fully expect the Clintons themselves to be gracious if it kills them. Yes, Bill is out there grousing that he's not sure how to sell Obama as commander-in-chief. But by Wednesday, I'm sure he will have figured it out.

What Hillary Nation has to think about is: Even on an it's-all-about-you basis, if John McCain wins in November, are you so sure that vindication of Hillary's prediction that Obama wasn't electable will be the result? It's just as likely she'd be blamed for such an outcome, which the Clintons know. That's why she will hit every mark and then some. And why, if he goes so much as cocks an eyebrow off message, we can safely assume he really has lost his last political marble.

"Passed Over": One Great Bad Ad

Once Again, It's the Economy, Stupid

The poor Old Capitol Blues and BBQs festival—it had the dubious honor of competing today, adjacent to the old state capitol grounds in Springfield, Ill., with the Obama-Biden rally. It didn't fare well, at least during the rally—the barbecue vendors looked like they were suffering as much in the Midwest heat as everyone else, but with the added insult of a lack of customers. Crowds amassed despite sweltering temperatures to see the rally; far fewer came for ribs and music, even though the festival is an annual event and had been planned for a year.

But really, it seemed to me a metaphor for the economy that Biden was busy espousing on (his zinger about McCain not being able to decide which of his seven kitchen tables to sit at and worry whether or not he could pay his bills did get a good response). Few wanted to pay the $5 to get in the festival, it seemed, even for a sight line of the speech that wouldn't leave you packed in like a sardine on an extremely muggy day. (The festival literally backed up to the press tent at the rally. You could see the stage from a distance; you just couldn't get into the Obama event from there.) At first I thought it was just Springfieldians being thrifty—I grew up here, so I know the reluctance of the local population to pay a cover charge. But as I ducked into a restaurant to get water during the speech, I saw that not only were people glued to the big screens showing the speech just outside—when I first went in, you could hear a pin drop—they were focused on the economy; people shouted every time there was a mention of fixing it. 

Festival attendance may have suffered from the heat, all right—it was 90 degrees and humid, and who wants to eat ribs in that weather?—but I couldn't help but think it was eerily symbolic of the haves and have-nots Biden was contrasting, even though the festival's proximity was accidental, to be able to pay to see the speech from a less-sardinelike setting.

Why I'm Pro-Joe

It's not just the foreign policy chops; he brings some blood (and flab!) and jaw-flapping to a sometimes too-cool-for-school campaign. Voters actually liked it when Bush tripped over his own tongue; when he failed in his battle with blurting, they could relate, and that is the beauty of the Biden choice: He's got the smarts, the experience, and without question could be president. (In fact, watching the Democratic debates during primary season, I always thought that a viewer who came to the exercise cold would have assumed Biden was the front-runner.) But he also brings the humanity that Democrats have not always seen as important. It is.

Though no one has a more heart-breaking personal narrative than he—his first wife and their baby daughter died in a car accident soon after he was elected to the Senate—he sure never talked about it during primary season, showing an Irish Catholic restraint that will be familiar to a lot of the voters Obama needs to win over. And his working-class roots aren't just nice; they're why I fully expect him to know how to play rough and be plenty comfortable in the role of bad cop, taking on the Republican ticket in a way the candidate himself cannot. A guy who commutes home on public transpo every day taking on Mr. Can't Keep Track of His Houses? As we say in the Democratic Party, pas de probleme.