michelle and hillary

In 2004, my friends in Virginia Beach and I made a pact to watch all four nights of the Democratic National Convention, where we watched the good (Barack Obama's meteoric liftoff) and the bad (John Kerry "reporting for duty"). Due to the peculiarities of W&M's fall schedule, I watched all four nights of the Republican National Convention in my dorm. I plan to do the same thing this year.

I'm watching Joe Biden's speech right now. Matt just called his great teeth "the cliffs of Dover." Brilliant.

The first two nights of the 2008 DNC were marked by two fantastic, but very different speeches by remarkable women. Will said Tuesday night that he was going to read the transcript of Michelle Obama's speech and I told him to find the video online. I didn't find the text of her speech particularly amazing. What blew me away was her delivery. Apart from politics or my voting behavior, I think back to when I was an actor in school, or on my high school forensics team. Public speaking is really hard. The stage fright is no big deal for me, but delivering a written speech naturally and convincingly is another matter altogether. I'm not sure if I can articulate exactly why I liked her speech so much. Maybe that's the best endorsement of all.

A very different speech was the next night, from one Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Maybe you've heard of her. I am no Hillary fan. She has such high negative ratings among independents and Republicans that I think she would have undone a lot of Obama's appeal in those areas had she been the VP. But man, can she talk. I often criticized her for being robotic and cold, and she blew those concerns away. Only Clinton could speak to her supporters, and she made a strong case for not voting for McCain, if not a strong case to vote for Obama (her husband did that tonight, quite well I might add). The "were you in this campaign just for me?" line was well done, and her delivery was as good as it could have been -- which is to say, better than I expected.

The risk a good Clinton speech carries is the notion that it only reminds her supporters how bad they wanted her to be the nominee instead. What Bill did tonight, by telling people how a successful presidency should be conducted, is complete the speech that Hillary started. She made the case against McCain and thanked her supporters, and Bill made the case for Obama as president. After all, who would know better?