Thanks to my friend David, I was able to secure a ticket for last night’s convention proceedings. As you can tell from the picture, the bleacher seats aren’t the closest in the house (how do people follow a sporting event from that high up?), so no hobnobbing went on, just watching and taking in the speeches — or most of them. But it was exciting to be there and to experience the convention without the filter of television. Mind you, since I didn’t watch — and haven’t yet read — the pundits, what I observed has probably been said a hundred times over.
It’s striking how, live, the convention seemed particularly structured by contradictions. Here was an ersatz “party” staged for television according to the perceived demands of television, yet one in which conventioneers on the floor seemed to be having a genuinely good time, cheering and dancing to bad cover versions of rock and R&B classics. Here was a nostalgic reflection on conventions past (particularly 1964, with the Fanny Lou Hamer tribute, and 1948, with multiple references to the Fair Deal and Truman’s health insurance initiative), yet the chaotic scrum of state delegates bobbing signs had given way to trade-show orderliness.
But the deepest disconnect was around Kerry, who like a bride before the wedding has been kept from view til the big moment. I haven’t watched conventions this attentively before, but I can’t believe that they are always so obsessive in referring to the candidate by name. Every speaker, every other minute, there’s some mention of who John Kerry is. Of course we still don’t know much more about him as a person (fine by me, but this goes against political wisdom), but the mantra continues as if we were learning more.
Only there’s a palpable lack of enthusiasm around the candidate among the crowd. Attacks on Bush and his policies bring up spirited applause, as do eloquent defenses of liberal policy and ideals. But time and again, speakers build up to John Kerry’s name, and the applause is tepid at best. It’s like the popular kids in school are regaling you with tales and just acting cool, then mention that their little geeky brother’s cool, too. Really.
The energy of the night was elsewhere. It should have been Ted Kennedy’s night, the capstone of a political career and liberal oratory in a year and crowd hungry for it. But his speech was lackluster and the conventioneers responded instead to three other speakers. Howard Dean replayed his primary shtick and relived the primary race, which would have been sad had he not been such a great speaker. I thought the most powerful moment came when he made explicit claim for the Democratic Party as a national party. Even if Dean would never play as an electable politician in the red states, his very utterance that we should be proud to be Democrats not only in Massachusetts but in Utah or Texas seemed so basic it laid bare the narrowness of electoral vote strategizing and political consultancy. The delegates, too, many of whom come from red states, responded wildly.
Teresa Heinz Kerry spoke softly, so softly that it was at times hard to hear even with the Fleet Center PA system. Perhaps because of that, the crowd was pin drop silent, hanging on her every word. The speech itself was mixed; I was impressed that she came off much better than her television performances. And it was nice to hear someone defend intellectual pursuit as a worthy goal, one central to the health of our country, but amid the lack of clear referent, I’m not sure the message wasn’t lost. As for delivery, my friend David said that the exotic seductress looks creeping into her demeanor made her a little creepy. I’d say he’s right. At least Chris Heinz provides a nice counter-balance: telegenic, aw-shucks, and cheery.
But the biggest speech, the one that electrified the whole place, was Barack Obama’s keynote. I’d only read about Obama and feared that there was no way he could live up to the hype. I needn’t have worried. This man has the gift. Part of it was the delivery. After hours of boilerplate text orated in high-pitch monotone (Jean Napolitano was the worst culprit), to see and hear someone deliver a speech as if he were speaking, speaking to us, was refreshing. But, equally, Obama knows that ideas matter as much as image. People might know or follow policy, but politicians have learned the wrong lesson in adopting consultant-scripted images and evacuating content from their utterances. And last night, Obama’s speech was a point-by-point rebuttal of the Gingrich and Bush fils revolutions — all given with rhetorical punch and in a language the layman could understand. This, more than “communities” checklisting or barbs at Bush even, is what excited the crowd, bringing them to their feet. Democratic activists pine for a holistic politician with his or her feet on the ground more than critics give them credit for.
Ideas and persuasion, after all, is what these conventions ultimately are and should be about.
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