Although most of the people, like me, were there to see if the party would achieve the closure it needed after the bitter primaries, the drama temporarily took a backseat for a surprisingly invigorating speech by Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. With an Everyman charm, Schweitzer took on the issues and slammed the Republican leadership to the choreography of dancing red “McCain—the same” signs.
Hillary Clinton’s appearance began with a video tribute to her life, focusing on biographical trivia, her long battle for healthcare and the “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” (in reference to the number of primary votes she won)—a phrase echoed by Michelle Obama in her speech the night before.
There was very little ambiguity in Clinton’s speech. She recounted moments from her campaign and stated, “I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to this government… and they are the reason I support Barack Obama.” She scoffed at the Bush-McCain duo soon to meet in the “Twin Cities” (“it makes perfect sense”).
On the anniversary of women’s suffrage, she recounted the struggles of Harriet Tubman and Seneca Falls, dear to the hearts of her feminist followers. And just as we began to wonder if the exhortations to “keep on” didn’t have a sub-text ("we’re not big on quitting,” she said in an under-statement), she quickly turned it around to a plea to support Barack Obama.
Having successfully navigated the Hillary moment with a clear message of unity, the next telling moment came at today’s roll-call vote. Earlier in the day, Hillary Clinton “released her delegates” without telling them what to do with their votes. Many of the delegates from states where Clinton won the primary cast their votes for Obama. As the vote made its way down the alphabet, and Obama racked up votes, hundreds of Clinton delegates cast their votes for Obama, with several states like Arkansas, New Jersey and New Hampshire casting a unanimous group vote for Obama.
So then New Mexico yields in florid terms to Illinois, Illinois yields to New York and Hillary Clinton files onto the floor to suspend the roll call vote and nominate Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate.
The whole process seemed a little contrived to me, but I’m not much on rituals of power.
Anyway, it worked—Clinton was poised and dignified, the delegates accepted the measure to much acclaim, and everybody danced to “Love Train” in the aisles. Of course, all the states with the misfortune of beginning with letters after “n” missed their moment in the limelight and had to pocket their speeches about the beauty and benevolence of their states. But, hey, unity requires sacrifice.
The final important step on the road to post-primary unity was Bill Clinton’s speech tonight. The media reported some jostling between the Clinton and Obama camps on that one, with Clinton reportedly asked to pave the path for Obama’s debut as the unity candidate, and Clinton insisting on a forum to extol some of the accomplishments of his presidency.
President Clinton had one thing he HAD to say: Barack Obama is ready to be president. He said it, textually. He then went on to talk about what the United States should be, restoring work with international institutions and using diplomacy first and military force as a last resort, on this, the foreign policy night. “People abroad are always more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”
The former president made a strong case for Obama, endorsing his qualifications directly in a way his wife avoided. The rest of the evening consolidated the critique of the Bush administration and McCain’s candidacy, adding praise of the Obama candidacy. John Kerry compared the Obama/Biden platform to McCain’s positions with the rhetorical statement “Who can we trust to keep America safe?” Biden followed up, Obama took the stage in an unannounced appearance to cement the fact that it was his party, and some of the citizen participants made really remarkable contributions.
So the Democratic Party now has closure. But closure is an opening. The scripted opening is the path cleared for Barack Obama’s general elections campaign—the bottom line for the Party convention. That was a foregone conclusion but required careful packaging to begin to draw in sectors of the population that weren’t among the hardcore democrats on the floor of the Pepsi Center.
But the real opening is to give content and commitment to all the words heard here. Nobody expects the politicking to end here—in fact in many ways it’s just getting started. But what a united party now has to tell voters what it’s united behind, and how that differs substantially from the Republicans, to meet next week in their own convention.
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