Columns, pieces and posts
Barack Obama is deeply overexposed and often boring. He never seems to be saying what he’s thinking. His speech Thursday was weirdly anticlimactic. There’s too much buildup, the crowd was tired, it all felt flat. He was somber, and his message was essentially banal: We’ve done better than you think. Who are you going to […]
The Democrats killed. The first night of their convention was a great success. The question is: Killed in the room or killed also in the country? We’ll get a sense of that through polls and comments over the next few weeks. The elements of last night’s success: The crowd was happy, attentive, responsive and moved. […]
I was out of the room when I heard the phrase ‘savage disparities’ and knew it was Cory Booker, mayor of Newark. He spoke in favor of the platform. He had the kind of speech that you really agree with if you really agree with him. He is an obviously bright man who respects the […]
“A small cog in a giant inanity machine.” “Pretraumatic gaffe anxiety.” “A morsel of gotcha chum bobbing in the water.” “Brangelina.” The great Mark Leibovich at work.
Best new website of the season: Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews. Keep hitting “Show me another curse.” The ones from this weekend are going to make you laugh.
Some post-Tampa thoughts. 1. I think Charlotte is blending into Tampa and Tampa into Charlotte. The conventions were perversely scheduled—no time between them, no post-convention afterglow in which people could mull, consider, remember what was said, reflect upon a line, a gaffe, a revealing little stumble. The other day it was all Romney-speech-Romney-speech, soon it […]
Tampa, Fla. Two days in, I had no faith in this convention. The hurricane tore apart plans and affected everyone’s mood. Normal chaos became heightened anxiety. On the floor, the delegate seats had too much space between them, which removed the kind of animal density that speakers in big halls need. The weird, excessive security […]
Something so poignant about the end of a convention, something touching in a way you can’t put your finger on. Empty lobbies, empty cab lines, the long line at security at the airport, with people, especially cameramen, slackjawed with fatigue. At Delta check-in a couple had two huge bags open on the floor, their personal […]
I keep running into wonderful young people working their first convention, and they keep not asking me, “What is the secret to all politics?” I am here to tell them anyway. There is a secret theme song to all conventions, and it is in fact the secret theme song of all politics. You listen to the old […]
Mike Huckabee’s speech is the best of the convention so far. What a fabulous, old fashioned podium-thumper. He has been the only speaker tonight with the size to fill the room, the only one who can read a teleprompter without looking shifty-eyed, the only one with the confidence to go there at length on the meaning of such issues […]