DNC ends with Obama's Acceptance Speech at Invesco
In what was perhaps one of the most dramatically scripted political conventions of our time, Obama gave a speech that detailed some of the specifics of what his campaign means by “change” and framed the issues in this election. For the first half he gave a decidedly partisan rallying cry that the Democratic party hasn’t seen since Clinton in the early 90s or Kennedy in the early 80s. The second half was a more classic Obama appeal to the lofty postpartisan ideals that he seems to have enveloped around himself while still taking on virtually every McCain talking point that has been disseminated the past 8 weeks.
He even evoked at times FDR, Kennedy, Reagan, while deftly creating laughter about some of McCain’s positions while sternly taking to task McCain’s recent negative stunts.
The person who got it the most right was perhaps Pat Buchanan who said that it was a distinctly partisan speech but not a liberal speech which made it a rallying cry for Democrats that did not turn off conservative Democrats or Independents.
He touched topics that are radioactive to Democrats including abortion, guns, and gays by acknowledging that surely there is some common ground to be reached on such topics.
The bar had been set so high for this speech that it was nearly impossible to pull off, but he came in meaning business and finally taking the gloves off and going after McCain.
- Update: 38 million watched the speech on all networks (excluding PBS and C-SPAN which could push it up to 40-45M), which means it was more watched than the Olympics opening, Academy Awards, or the finale of “American Idol.” Compare that to Kerry getting around 20M four years ago.
