My Thoughts on the DNC

Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA)

Thanks to the DNC this week, I got in very little writing, so we're going to do something I never do and kind of do an "article dump" today of all of the articles I meant to write this week, but instead got sucked into the DNC.  So read these at your leisure (but hopefully read them all if you are interested), but my hope is to do a 4-5 article Saturday.  

We're going to, in fact, start with the DNC, which I watched a shockingly large amount of this past week.  I always catch the DNC, but it depends on the year whether or not I get super sucked in or not, and this year was maybe the best example of the DNC I've ever seen, so I was into it the whole time.

I think part of it was the excitement.  A month ago (and yes, it was just over a month ago-can you believe that?) we were looking at a very different DNC.  Biden was floundering after a horrendous debate performance, and was being asked by high-profile Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to drop out of the race.  We were down badly in the polls, and it looked like, for the first time since 1984, we were going to go into the convention as clear underdogs for November, with little reason for hope.

But then Biden dropped out, and the last month has been a flawless rollout of the Kamala Harris for President campaign.  Harris is more practiced, more disciplined, and less silly than she was in 2020; it's ironic in a campaign that is literally about "bringing the joy back" that Harris herself has had to make herself less joyful, her trademark cackle laugh nearly banished from her interviews and speeches (I say this as someone else who has a famous cackle laugh-I feel her pain on this one).  After a lot of media swirl, she picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running-mate, a choice that some initially criticized for its lack of an obvious swing state impact, but honestly-the campaign could not have chosen better if they tried.  Walz has proven a superstar even people who have followed his career for years couldn't have predicted, and watching him alongside figures like Mark Kelly & Josh Shapiro at the DNC...it's clear Walz was the right choice.

This all led to a really moving and at times bittersweet DNC.  Like I said, I've watched at least some of the DNC since 1992, when I was eight (I remember seeing Clinton's immortal "I still believe in a place called Hope" which, in my opinion, is still the finest single line I've ever witnessed in politics), and I've seen really good DNC's before (1992, 2008, & 2012 all come to mind), but I've never seen a DNC with this kind of production value.  For a group of speeches that had to be completely rewritten and replanned in the past couple of weeks, it's insane how well this went.

Let's examine the evidence, shall we?  First, Harris & Walz, both in completely different roles than they would've been at this DNC on July 1st (her as VP, him as DGA Chair) aced their speeches-home runs, wonderful, totally did exactly what they needed to do.  But the rest of the DNC is where the real marvel was.  For starters, we saw vulnerable Democrats who wouldn't have been within 50 miles of Joe Biden after that debate clamoring to be a part of this.  There was a lot of press about Jon Tester & Jacky Rosen not being able to make it, but lots of vulnerable Democrats like Elissa Slotkin, Ruben Gallego, & Pat Ryan were all speaking on the main stage, and I spotted more vulnerable Democrats like Angie Craig & Jahana Hayes repeatedly on the camera in the audience.  There was no sense that tossup district Democrats were trying to avoid the DNC, which was definitely a thing that Biden's reelection campaign was experiencing.  That's entirely due to Harris's improved standings in the polls.

We also saw the future of the party on display.  Early on, we saw speeches from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Jasmine Crockett that went viral on social media, announcing these two young women (who have been some of the most impressive stars in recent years out of the most recent Congresses), land well.  Both of them are likely to get bigger opportunities at the DNC in the future after that.  We saw the crop of new governors like Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, & JB Pritzker take the stage, with Harris (unlike Trump) not afraid of putting people onstage that threaten to outshine her...partially because they didn't (Harris didn't give the best speech of the DNC, but she was good enough no one's going to point that out save for apparently me).  We also saw better celebrities.  Though no Beyonce or Taylor Swift (as was rumored at one point...I suspect the Harris campaign gets her next to both before the year is over), but we still had a surprise appearance by Oprah Winfrey on top of scheduled guest spots by Stevie Wonder, Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, P!nk, & Kenan Thompson (for comparison, the only big celebrity name that Trump got was Hulk Hogan).

President Bill Clinton (D-AR)

And perhaps most importantly, we saw the past of the Democratic convention.  Trump's coronation was marked by the lack of virtually any major Republicans from before the Trump Era.  Part of this is that most of them are gone at this point or publicly disgraced (Dennis Hastert, looking at you).  But George & Laura Bush, Dick & Lynne Cheney, widows of John McCain or Bob Dole, Paul Ryan or John Boehner, Mitt Romney...none of them were on that stage for the DNC.  Mitch McConnell showed up and got booed (for the record, the only person booed at the DNC that I saw was Kathy Hochul, which feels about right, and that includes Republicans like Adam Kinzinger & Stephanie Grisham, both of whom endorsed Kamala Harris-you didn't see any of that sort of crossover attempt at the RNC), and he was the only pre-Trump figure to make the effort.

Meanwhile, the Democrats had both the Clintons, both the Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and both the Bidens take the stage.  Al Gore & John Kerry were spotted near the event, and both Jesse Jackson & Elizabeth Warren were obviously moved by the rapturous applause they got from the stadium.  Scions of major Democratic political families like Jack Schlossberg (grandson of President Kennedy), Jason Carter (grandson of President Carter), and Cecile Richards (daughter of Governor Ann Richardson) were given moments in the spotlight.  This was a celebration of the old-and-the-new.  Some clucked at this ("who really wants to hear from Bill Clinton again?"), which in hindsight looks moronic.  The Democrats showing a sense of stability, a sense of movement forward, is really something.  It also led to some of the week's most moving speeches.  Michelle Obama gave the best speech of her career and of the week (not hyperbole, I stand behind this as truly her best, and that's a high bar to cross given what a gifted orator she is), going from the high-minded hope of 2016 to it's-time-to-fight-back of 2024.  Bill Clinton, though a bit torn up by age at this point (he talks slower and quieter than he did in his heyday), still gave a moving soliloquy that, along with Michelle Obama's, told Democrats that this isn't done yet-and they need to be grownups as Harris & Walz enter the real world of the campaign, and not panic when they inevitably stumble.

It was extra moving because Bill Clinton pointed out the obvious here when he said (and I cried when he admitted it), "I don't know how many more of these I have left."  It's true-Clinton admitted at the start of his speech that he was the oldest man in the history of his family.  We have had so much focus on Joe Biden's age we forget that Jill (not to mention Bill & Hillary, Jesse Jackson, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, & Nancy Pelosi) are not young anymore either.  It is very atypical for a former First Lady to appear after her husband is done with politics-we have been blessed that Hillary & Michelle continued to take that perch and make the case to a base that loves them.  It's hard not to feel like this is one of those Olympics where a lot of longtime favorites admit that this is probably their last, and that it's time for us to put our hearts into the new names...even if they will never feel quite the same.  The DNC is always better than the RNC (we get better celebrities, and we have better union help on it, and unions represent better quality), but this one was especially poignant because it captured a sense of "let's win this, one last time" in a way that 2016 and 2020 never could.