This was one reaction by a MSNBC pundit after Obama's rousing speech tonight. But what is really impressive is the pundits name-Nicole Wallace. Yes, the former George W. Bush speechwriter.
She prefaced this judgment-'It makes you feel proud he was our President-by pointing out that she voted against the man twice.
That's how powerful the President''s speech was tonight. Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager in 2008 had a similar reaction. As he said, the Dems did almost everything right tonight.
His speech was a clear bid for the middle. This whole week has been this. It was the point of Mike Bloomberg's speech.
"But Bloomberg says even people who don’t love Hillary Clinton should vote for her:
"Now, I know Hillary Clinton is not flawless; no candidate is. But she is the right choice — and the responsible choice — in this election. No matter what you may think about her politics or her record, Hillary Clinton understands that this is not reality television; this is reality."
"This argument, that the responsible thing to do is to vote for Clinton, is one that’s been widely circulated on the internet in the form of internecine arguments between Clinton-backers and Sanders-backers. But that argument usually ends up taking the direction of talking about the platform and Clinton’s progressive bona fides and the Supreme Court and so on and so forth."
"Bloomberg is making a purer form of the argument — one that’s aimed at centrist and center-left voters. He’s saying that Clinton, for better or worse, is a regular politician who will do regular stuff. You might not like it. But things will be basically fine. At worst, you’ll vote her out in four years. With Trump, there’s honestly no guarantee that there even will be an election in four years."
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12305384/michael-bloomberg-speech-case-hillary-clinton
This goes back to a fundamental divide between the Berners and Hillary Clinton that Bill Scher talked about in terms of strategy.
"Unlike Trump, Clinton is not trying to thread an electoral needle. To the chagrin of the left, she’s nodding to Bernie Sanders’ populist agenda but not basing her entire campaign around it. She tapped Sen. Tim Kaine despite his support for the “fast track” law designed to ease ratification of multinational trade agreements. She’s reached out to anti-Trump Republican hawks by embracing the philosophy of American Exceptionalism, declaring that “if America doesn't lead, we leave a vacuum, and that will either cause chaos or other countries will rush in to fill the void.” Her aides told the New York Times earlier this month that her governing strategy would be squarely based on bipartisanship, the antithesis of Sanders’ vision of steamrolling Congress via grassroots revolution."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/07/25/clinton_aims_for_a_landslide_131310.html
At the end of the day, this remains the Democratic party of Hillary-and Obama. And for that matter, of Elizabeth Warren.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/populists-had-night-clinton-party-000000513.html
The Democrats in 2016 are not going for a 51-49 election. They're not trying to out populist Donald Trump.
They believe that Trump puts a lot of Right leaning independents and some moderate Republicans up for grabs. Judging by the reaction of Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt to Obama's speech, maybe it is possible after all.
This is the 1964 LBJ playbook where he won lots of conservatives who were just afraid of having Goldwater in the White House.
A lot of conservatives and moderate GOPers want no part of Trumpism either.
Indeed, it's amazing, but the Dems have become the party of hope and optimism and the GOP has become the party of almost apocalyptic fear, cynicism, and dystopia.
Eric Erickson tweeted:
Text just now from a senior House Republican who gave me permission to tweet this: “We were supposed to make that sort of speech."
https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/758514549339414528
It will be interesting to see how many independents, moderate GOPers, and conservatives-put off by Trumpism-might be won over.
Interestingly George Will himself talked about the chance Hillary Clinton could have a victory on the scale of Reagan in 1980.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-clinton-do-in-2016-what-reagan-did-in-1980/2016/07/25/1736a1b2-528d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html
At the end of the day election is going to be about two visions: one about hate, fear, and cynicism, one about hope, optimism, and I guess love. Hilary does say Love Trumps Hate.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/07/trump-vs-obama-2016-battle-between.html
Judging by the reaction of Wallace and Schmidt maybe a lot of people are going to decide that they feel proud that Obama was their President, and, so, pull the lever for his successor.
She prefaced this judgment-'It makes you feel proud he was our President-by pointing out that she voted against the man twice.
That's how powerful the President''s speech was tonight. Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager in 2008 had a similar reaction. As he said, the Dems did almost everything right tonight.
His speech was a clear bid for the middle. This whole week has been this. It was the point of Mike Bloomberg's speech.
"But Bloomberg says even people who don’t love Hillary Clinton should vote for her:
"Now, I know Hillary Clinton is not flawless; no candidate is. But she is the right choice — and the responsible choice — in this election. No matter what you may think about her politics or her record, Hillary Clinton understands that this is not reality television; this is reality."
"This argument, that the responsible thing to do is to vote for Clinton, is one that’s been widely circulated on the internet in the form of internecine arguments between Clinton-backers and Sanders-backers. But that argument usually ends up taking the direction of talking about the platform and Clinton’s progressive bona fides and the Supreme Court and so on and so forth."
"Bloomberg is making a purer form of the argument — one that’s aimed at centrist and center-left voters. He’s saying that Clinton, for better or worse, is a regular politician who will do regular stuff. You might not like it. But things will be basically fine. At worst, you’ll vote her out in four years. With Trump, there’s honestly no guarantee that there even will be an election in four years."
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12305384/michael-bloomberg-speech-case-hillary-clinton
This goes back to a fundamental divide between the Berners and Hillary Clinton that Bill Scher talked about in terms of strategy.
"Unlike Trump, Clinton is not trying to thread an electoral needle. To the chagrin of the left, she’s nodding to Bernie Sanders’ populist agenda but not basing her entire campaign around it. She tapped Sen. Tim Kaine despite his support for the “fast track” law designed to ease ratification of multinational trade agreements. She’s reached out to anti-Trump Republican hawks by embracing the philosophy of American Exceptionalism, declaring that “if America doesn't lead, we leave a vacuum, and that will either cause chaos or other countries will rush in to fill the void.” Her aides told the New York Times earlier this month that her governing strategy would be squarely based on bipartisanship, the antithesis of Sanders’ vision of steamrolling Congress via grassroots revolution."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/07/25/clinton_aims_for_a_landslide_131310.html
At the end of the day, this remains the Democratic party of Hillary-and Obama. And for that matter, of Elizabeth Warren.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/populists-had-night-clinton-party-000000513.html
The Democrats in 2016 are not going for a 51-49 election. They're not trying to out populist Donald Trump.
They believe that Trump puts a lot of Right leaning independents and some moderate Republicans up for grabs. Judging by the reaction of Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt to Obama's speech, maybe it is possible after all.
This is the 1964 LBJ playbook where he won lots of conservatives who were just afraid of having Goldwater in the White House.
A lot of conservatives and moderate GOPers want no part of Trumpism either.
Indeed, it's amazing, but the Dems have become the party of hope and optimism and the GOP has become the party of almost apocalyptic fear, cynicism, and dystopia.
Eric Erickson tweeted:
Text just now from a senior House Republican who gave me permission to tweet this: “We were supposed to make that sort of speech."
https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/758514549339414528
It will be interesting to see how many independents, moderate GOPers, and conservatives-put off by Trumpism-might be won over.
Interestingly George Will himself talked about the chance Hillary Clinton could have a victory on the scale of Reagan in 1980.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-clinton-do-in-2016-what-reagan-did-in-1980/2016/07/25/1736a1b2-528d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html
At the end of the day election is going to be about two visions: one about hate, fear, and cynicism, one about hope, optimism, and I guess love. Hilary does say Love Trumps Hate.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/07/trump-vs-obama-2016-battle-between.html
Judging by the reaction of Wallace and Schmidt maybe a lot of people are going to decide that they feel proud that Obama was their President, and, so, pull the lever for his successor.
Mike, Erickson had a laundry list of comments, mostly positive about the speech, but one thing he said is a bit of a concern:
ReplyDelete6. Hillary Clinton’s speech, which was already going to be inferior to President Obama’s, will be seen as even more inferior after his performance tonight.
Well, there may be a bit of truth to that prediction... we'll see. It's good that Hillary's speech will be tomorrow. What a huge line up tonight, eh?
The only blemishes were the protest chants during Panetta's speech. Those actually embarrassed me. But overall the terrorism issue was addressed by a number of speakers and in an honest and positive way I thought. Overall a very good show!
Also Bloomberg got a tiny bit of booing when he covered what he doesn't like about Dems (two sentences I think), but that was entirely expected if not appropriate at a Dem convention, and I don't think that bothered or surprised anyone (he really needed to say something along those lines as he had to explain why he's an independent: he needed street cred so to speak).
That's just how they always have to find the glass half empty.
ReplyDeleteLike after she didn't get indicted this was supposed to be just as bad as if she had.
I'm sure she'd be better if Obama gave a mediocre speech so she's have a lower bar.
Obama is a great orator, but she'll do fine. As it's all in her service, any good speech at the convention helps her whether or not it's supposedly be better than her own.
Yeah, it is hard to see how it could be anything but positive. Still, I'm glad hers in on a different night.
DeleteMeanwhile in Trump town:
ReplyDeleteHere's another lie that's just been tossed down the memory hole.