Barack Gets the Nod
So after all the nail biting and hand ringing, the Dems had a conventional convention. Nothing crazy happened. There weren't any surprises. Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
Hillary went up on stage and said just the right things. She stayed on her message and made it clear that the only thing she wants from her supporters is for them to vote for Barack Obama. No drama.
Which put the pundits in a pickle. Because they had been promising at drama for weeks. And then poof, it wasn't there. But they had an ace in the hole. Not minutes after Hillary Clinton had cleared the stage, the pundits started looking forward to Bill Clinton's speech scheduled for the next day. Surely, if there was going to be a loose-cannon, it was going to be the lascivious former pres.
A big to-do was made of how Bill refused the Obama campaigns requests to "vet" his speech. What was he going to say? Was he going to try to upstage Obama? How would the Obama camp react when he made this convention about his legacy instead of about their candidate?
Didn't happen. No drama. Wow! Color me surprised!
And then last night, Barack went on stage and did all of the things that made him so popular in the first place. He gave a rousing speech, with a broad and accessible vision of the role of government, business, and individual citizens in our country. And then he laid out, in some detail, what he, as President, would do to achieve that vision.
Really, that went off without a hitch. I guess CNN will have to hope something awkward happens at the Republican convention.