Glenden BrownBiden
Biden’s speech last night was not perfect - it was however, moving, honest, heartfelt and hit all the right notes. His son’s introduction brought tears to a lot of eyes, including Michelle Obama’s.
Then Biden arrived, did the thank yous, launched the attacks and laid out the economic argument.
Almost every night, I take the train home to Wilmington, sometimes very late. As I look out the window at the homes we pass, I can almost hear what they’re talking about at the kitchen table after they put the kids to bed.
Like millions of Americans, they’re asking questions as profound as they are ordinary. Questions they never thought they would have to ask:
* Should mom move in with us now that dad is gone?
* Fifty, sixty, seventy dollars to fill up the car?
* Winter’s coming. How in God’s name are we gonna pay the heating bills?
* Another year and no raise?
* Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care?
* Now, we owe more on the house than it’s worth. How in God’s name are we going to send the kids to college?
* How in God’s name are we gonna be able to retire?
(The “in God’s name” part was a departure from his prepared remarks.)
Biden is an interesting speaker - he doesn’t have Obama’s gift for oratory but he’s a damn sight better than the Shrub. Ezra Klein, writing in the The American Prospect:
Joseph Biden’s speech last night accepting the Democratic nomination for the vice presidency was not a great speech. The rhetoric did not take wing and soar, the assembled delegates did not leave the arena slack-jawed and astonished. It was a workmanlike address, a blunt object delivered, at times, with great force. In many ways, it was the opposite of Barack Obama’s best speeches. This may be exactly what the Obama campaign needs . . .
Ezra argues that McCain’s attacks have been effective in blunting the effect of Obama’s oratorical skills - even making them a liability. In that sense, Biden is the counterweight - a less then inspiring speaking but a damned effective one, someone who isn’t afraid to get angry, who isn’t afraid to to criticize and attack but not a golden tongued speaker. Biden - the workman politician with decades of experience and that bare-knuckles style Irish-American politicking. The Kennedy’s, for all their charm and speech making skills were born and bred in the heady atmosphere of that East Coast Irish American political machine. Reading histories of Tammany Hall you read about a seemingly endless parade of Irish-American pols who brought to politics a tough-minded, blunt style that did not suffer fools gladly (the same goes for many of big city political machines) Biden is the inheritor of that no-nonsense style of politics.
ps- Obama’s unscripted appearance on the stage was an interesting moment. The camera kept showing Michelle Obama and she was brilliantly unguarded - the look on her face said one thing to me: “I want to run up there and hold my husband. I miss him desperately and I need to hold him and I need him to hold me.” She may be the star of the convention - certainly the camera loves her.