The Democrats had the better convention
So the two political conventions are over, and the question is: who won?
In all, the democratic convention in Charlotte had the better speeches and the greater enthusiasm. It had the unforgettable testimony about her husband by Michelle Obama, and it had the equally unforgettable, masterly lecture by Bill Clinton on how things really stand and how important it is to support Barack Obama in the fall.
And it had, of course, Barack Obama himself, although he did not deliver another glorious, mesmerizing speech that we have so often been treated to. It was good, more than ok, solid and, at times, eloquent, but there was also somehow something missing.
John Cassidy in The New Yorker wrote that the president was playing it safe, knowing he was head in the polls and not wanting to give the Republicans new ammunition. And Joe Klein in Time Magazine said that the president did not close the deal and it left him wondering what Obama will do in his second term, if he is re-elected.
I don’t know, maybe our expectations were set too high, maybe we failed to take into account the fact that, this time, it was the President speaking, not a young State Senator like in 2004, or a presidential candidate like in 2008.
Here was a battle-hardened leader of the country, who had been dealt a really difficult hand and who realized that things were not improving as fast as he, or the country, would like. Yet, he said that the country was better off today than four years ago and that the choice in November was one between going forward and turning back to the failed policies of the Bush years, policies that got us in this terrible economic fix in the first place.
We will know in a week or two who won. The Republicans, with a bland speech by Mitt Romney, a speech by Paul Ryan that drove the fact-checkers crazy, and with Clint Eastwood…they did not have a good convention. It seems that they received only the smallest of bounces in the polls, but the verdict is not in yet, for either party. I would be surprised, though, if the Democrats do not come out ahead, thanks to the cumulative effect of the past three days in Charlotte.
|
A Swede's view from D.C.
Internationally renowned journalist Klas Bergman will on a continuous basis cover the 2012 U.S. election process from a Swedish American perspective. Born in Stockholm, Bergman spent most of his adult life outside Sweden, reporting from western and eastern Europe, the Middle East and the U.S., based in Washington, DC and working mainly for the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter and the Christian Science Monitor.
His primary domicile has been America, ever since his early student days in California in the 1960s. He now lives in the Washington, DC area.
For more information on the columnist and communications specialist, see http://ksbergman.wordpress.com
Klas Bergman's second book, "Drömmarnas Land" is released in Sweden on Sept. 20. isbn 978 91 7331 515 9. 278 pages, hard cover, in Swedish.
Carlsson Bokförlag.
|