The first night of the convention

I understand why Teddy Kennedy excites democrats - although I was bothered by how diminished he is. He spoke to a group I work with a couple of years ago and did a good job of presenting his views. But tonight I kept thinking the presentation was more for him than for the audience. He certainly is a symbol for the party.

Michelle Obama showed herself to be intelligent but I wonder whether these kinds of speeches are more than a future set of soundbites. I do not believe that these kinds of biographical pieces are sufficiently informative to actually offer something outside of the well packaged model that we have seen in the last year and a half. As an undecided voter, I had no more reason to vote for Senator Obama than before the speech.

But the odd duck tonight was Jim Leach. Leach was never a very good member of his own party, which he at least still claimed in the speech. In 2006 he was defeated by a college professor.. At that time he was an anomaly to the prevailing story by the media of the election. Indeed, although the Republicans had a bad election year in 2006, the "moderates" in the party who opposed the war, had an even worse year. They lost in larger percentages than other candidates.

About two weeks ago he came out for Senator Obama. That is certainly his right. But I doubt whether his rhetoric will move anyone. He gave a lame speech. I understand why parties want to put up someone from the other party. But like Zell Miller's over the top speech to the Republicans, I am unconvinced that they make a whit of difference. The commentators tried to make the case that a lot of GOP faithful are considering Obama - the polls say different - that a lot of Hillary supporters are considering McCain. I suspect that crossovers will not determine this election. When Zell Miller gave his speech at the GOP convention, I kept thinking, this is a guy who wants one more day in the spotlight. That could be true for Leach also. He's gotten an interim gig at Harvard's Institute for Politics but in this performance he looked like a RINO out of water. The crowd response was underwhelming, and it should have been.