Casting Stones - A political Mashup Blog

Crunchy ConWednesday August 27, 2008 @ 4:37pm

Category: Democrats

It's all Greek to Barack Obama

Is Team Obama crazy? Or do they have a Republican mole on the senior staff? I ask because they're going to have the Lightworker giving his acceptance speech in a football stadium, surrounded by Greek temple columns. Shazam! Straight from Olympus to bring word from on high to us mere mortals! Man, if I were making McCain's commercials, I would thank Zeus for this gift.

See, Obama supporters, this is why Republicans have so much to work with, making fun of his messianic image. The meme doesn't come from nowhere. Karl Rove isn't making these decisions, you know.

UPDATE: What Ramesh said.

Comments (62)

Filed Under: casting stones, Democrats, Greek, Obama, Republicans

Reformed Chicks BlabbingWednesday August 27, 2008 @ 3:17pm

Category: Politics

Obama promises no soaring rhetoric during his acceptance speech

Bummer! I was looking forward to soaring rhetoric not policy! But I guess since the independents want substance not style, Obama is forced to include policy in his speech:

"I'm not aiming for a lot of high rhetoric," he said of his upcoming speech. "I'm much more concerned with communicating how I intend to help middle-class families live their lives."

"People know that I can give the kind of speech that I gave four years ago," Obama continued. "That's not the question on voters' minds. I think they're much more interested in, what am I going to do to help them in their lives? And so, in that sense, this is going to be a more workmanlike speech."

Looks like it's going to be a dull speech, I hope it doesn't go long. It's bad enough that we have to sit through two windbags tonight :-)

BTW, I don't need Obama's help to live my life, I'm perfectly able to do that on my own. But if he really wants to help, he can give us a tax cut and to make Bush's tax cuts permanent so we keep the deduction for our kids. He can also open up more areas for drilling.

Update: Well, at least we'll have the Greek Temple to look at during the speech. Here's a video if you're interested in what it looks like.

Comments (10)

Filed Under: casting stones, convention, Democrats, Obama, presidential election, speech

Reformed Chicks BlabbingWednesday August 27, 2008 @10:00am

Category: Politics

Hillary may have given a unifying speech...

But her people don't seem to be in the mood for unity:

Hillary Rodham Clinton's most loyal delegates came to the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night looking for direction. They listened, rapt, to a 20-minute speech that many proclaimed the best she had ever delivered, hoping her words could somehow unwind a year of tension in the Democratic Party. But when Clinton stepped off the stage and the standing ovation faded into silence, many of her supporters were left with a sobering realization: Even a tremendous speech couldn't erase their frustrations.

Despite Clinton's plea for Democrats to unite, her delegates remained divided as to how they should proceed.

The article goes on to report the reaction of some of her supporters. They interviewed supporters who intend to move on and vote for Obama, a supporter who intends to work really hard to get McCain elected, a supporter who will work for her Congressman but not Obama, and supporters who don't know what they'll do.

The article also points out the devotion of her supporters:

Clinton said Tuesday night that it is Obama's convention. But many of her supporters came here exclusively to honor her. One group traveled from New York and built an impromptu museum commemorating Clinton's historic campaign. Another lighted thousands of candles in a park to symbolize her widespread support.

On Tuesday morning, hundreds of loyalists formed a 200-yard parade and marched through downtown. They shouted into loudspeakers and beat drums, creating a cacophony that echoed across the blocks. As they began marching, some of the supporters chanted, "We want a roll call." Many of them wore their opinions on T-shirts: Country Over Party. Damn, We Wish You Were President. Still Making History. Democrats Left Behind.

At the front of the parade route, one banner summarized their message: Hillary. Who Else?

"A lot of people came here just because they wanted to celebrate Hillary," said Elizabeth Fiechter, a New York City lawyer who helped organize the parade. "We get criticism because there's this idea that the election should move on and just leave her behind. We're not going down that quietly."

We may knock Obama for his devotees but it seems that Hillary has her own group of worshipers.

If McCain does win this election and it's the Clinton supporters who put him over the top, he better broaden his base because he will have a hard time going against Clinton in 2012. These women will not be denied :-) and four years will only strengthen their resolve.

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Filed Under: casting stones, Clinton, Democrats, Obama, presidential election

Crunchy ConWednesday August 27, 2008 @ 7:44am

Category: Democrats

Oh, the selfless Obamas

I'm with Clive Crook:

It's starting to annoy me that Barack keeps telling us how he turned down Wall Street for a career in "public service". By this he means politics. Just how great a sacrifice is that? The kind of ambition that gets you into the Senate and maybe the White House is not exactly renouncing the world and all its temptations, is it? And now here we have Michelle doing the same thing. She gave up lawyering, she says, and chose "public service"--the kind that leads in due course to a 300k-plus salary. I've no problem with it. I just don't want to keep being asked to admire the sacrifice.

(H/T: Andrew Sullivan).

Comments (22)

Filed Under: Barack Obama, casting stones, Democrats, Michelle Obama

Reformed Chicks BlabbingTuesday August 26, 2008 @11:08pm

Category: Politics

Well, Clinton did it!

No one can say that she didn't do what she was expected to do. She was unequivocal in her support for Obama. From the beginning of her speech until the end, she made it clear that she wanted her people to support Obama. She did an amazing job of moving from what she worked for to what they needed to continue working for by voting for Obama. I thought that she really sold it when she asked if they were supporting her or the causes that she ran for.

I think the Republicans are pretty thankful that they didn't have to go up against her! I think that she probably could have been a formidable candidate and pretty good at attacking her opponent (the Twin Cities remark was pretty good).

Comments (8)

Filed Under: casting stones, Clinton, convention, Democrats, Obama, presidential election

Crunchy ConTuesday August 26, 2008 @10:37pm

Category: Democrats

Liveblogging Hillary Clinton

1. I like the tone of the video introduction of Hillary Clinton -- it's edgy, it's rock-and-roll, it's not soft and all pity-party. And that's what Chelsea's voice sounds like! I can't recall that I've ever heard more than three words from her. Certainly I prefer Chelsea's one-line intro to Michelle Obama's brother's endless soliloquy. And Hillary looks great. Now, let's hear her speech.

2. "Whether you voted for me or you voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team, and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. ... No way, no how, no McCain." Well, she leaves no doubt now where she stands -- or where her supporters should stand.

3. This is far from a great speech, and barely a good one. But Hillary's doing what she needed to do: telegraphing without any hint of ambiguity that anybody who voted for her should vote for Obama -- and even suggesting that if they withhold their vote out of spite, they've being selfish. I don't know what more she could have done. She came through for her team. Well done. And this was a good line: "Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, we did it before with President Clinton and the Democrats. And if we do our part, we'll do it again with President Obama and the Democrats.

4. Good red-meat lines, slapping McCain around. Carville's got to be happy. Hillary finally looks like she's having a good time.

"My mother was born before women could vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother ... . This is the story of America." Great line. And quoting Harriet Tubman like she's doing -- has Hillary ever given a speech this good? She's really kicking ass here at the end.

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Filed Under: casting stones, Democrats, Hillary Clinton

Crunchy ConTuesday August 26, 2008 @10:31pm

Category: Democrats

The Democratic oratory deficit

Could it possibly be the case that the only Democrats in the country who know how to give a speech any normal person would care to listen to are Barack and Michelle Obama? Good grief, could Mark Warner and Bob Casey possibly have been more boring? Gov. Schweitzer isn't bad, though; at least he's got a pulse. "The petro dictators will never own American wind and sunshine," he said. Good line, even if it's misleading (as is any promise by a politician of either party that wind and solar can free us from petroleum dependency).

The Democrats are so dull that even my 21 month old Nora is tired of them. She and I are sitting here watching this thing. She just toddled over and said, "Obama, Daddy. Obama."

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Filed Under: casting stones, Democrats

Crunchy ConTuesday August 26, 2008 @ 2:12pm

Category: Democrats

Scrutinizing Michelle Obama

As I said last night, Michelle Obama's attractive claims that she left the corporate world to labor among the wretched of the earth, or whatever, opens herself up to scrutiny that she might not be able to overcome. Spengler points out that her negatives are very high, and then says:

The promotional video introducing her speech to the convention made a great deal of the fact that Michelle left a corporate law firm to tutor disadvantaged children, but did not mention her re-entry into the corporate world. Her role at the convention, again, leaves her open to pointed questioning about the discrepancy between her rhetoric and her own career choices.
Whether the Michelle Obama we saw on Monday night has the sangfroid to stand up to the inevitable hazing by the press corps remains to be seen.

Is hazing by the press corps "inevitable" in the Michelle Obama case? I dunno. Spengler's column brought to mind, though, how odd it is that in praising Michelle Obama's speech last night for relaunching her brand from Angela Davis in heels to skinny Oprah, I've basically been admiring how effectively she's managed to give an essentially dishonest account of who she really is, for the sake of boosting her numbers.

But then again, isn't that what political conventions are for?

Comments (51)

Filed Under: casting stones, Michelle Obama, Obama

Reformed Chicks BlabbingTuesday August 26, 2008 @11:20am

Category: Politics

Michelle Obama: "We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be"

A transcript of her speech and the video can be found at Hot Air.

So, I watched what the networks deemed an appropriate amount of time for viewing the Democrats' convention: an hour. Actually I would have viewed it for two hours if they had deemed it worthy of that amount of time but they only gave me an hour so I took it and watched what NBC did with that hour and it wasn't pretty.

First they spent a half hour of it on what the reporters thought of what happened before we tuned in which was how Kennedy unified the Democrats. That was a theme of the night: the unification of the party. That seemed to be the main concern of the reporters and anchor.

They did show some snippets of Kennedy but not his whole speech or the film that was made as a tribute to him and when they were interviewing Caroline Kennedy, you could see that the Michelle Obama video had started so they wrapped up the interview and went to commercial! I switched over to CBS and ABC to see if they were playing the video and they were.

I thought the video was well done and gave us a window into who Michelle Obama is and what kind of family she came from. a loving family with a hard working father and a stay at home mother with a loving brother. A father who fell ill early and whose loss is still felt by the family he left behind.

But I didn't like her speech and was bored by it, though her delivery was good. I guess I expected more. I thought the part about loving her country was purely political, an attempt to answer her critics. I thought the reference to Hillary sounded forced and was obviously there to placate the Clinton supporters. But what bothered me the most was when she kept repeating "the world as it should be." That concerned me. How should the world be and who is to decide? Her? Her husband? And how do they intend to "fight" for it? What was left unsaid was more telling than what she said. And I would hope that they might tell us what the "world as it should be" looks like so we have some idea what they expect to do when in office.

The part with the kids was cute but awkward and felt staged. They do make a beautiful family. If he wasn't such a Marxist and not prepared to be commander in chief in these precarious times with Russia starting to roar, terrorists looking to destroy us and Iran looking to acquire nuclear weapons, it would be tempting to put them in the White House on looks alone :-)

Update: Seems like the cable viewers didn't have much more opportunity than us network viewers to listen to the speeches. Those viewing the network's coverage of the convention didn't even know that Obama's half-sister gave a speech.

Another update: The Charlotte Michelle is the one that you have to read between the gaps.

Comments (21)

Filed Under: casting stones, convention, Democrats, Michelle Obama, Obama, presidential election