DNC Convention.....

[poolwizard]

What are you thoughts on the convention as a whole...i think the speech Michelle Obama gave last night was excellent...i did not know she is such a good speaker....

[Aaliyyah]

oh my god I loved her speech. I think she sort of recreated her identity. she emphasized that she loved America to correct her previous speech that was taken out of context. and, how she talked about how they both (she and obama) beat the odds, grew up in hard life, and how their parents sacrificed everything for them and what not. I could even relate to that how our parents did everything for us just so we could have a better life. I mean how many of us actually know that our parents could have been so much happier back home, live even in a blast life. Yet they chose not to...anyways going off topic.

 

Overall the convention went great..

[True2truth]

I very much enjoyed it, until this morning, the whole riveting speech got over shadowed by the assassination story, a Republican’s poor attempt to destroy democrats momentum. Nevertheless the woman got power!

[Pujah]

I loved Ted Kennedy's speech the most - also Michelle and Sen. Obama's sister were great.

The speaker of the house should stop speaking ..really!

[Nephissa]

I was blown away by Hillary's speech last nite...blown away! I thought it was brilliant. No sign of sniping, animosity or setting up for anything other than to propel Obama as far as she can.

[Pujah]

I didn't catch Hillary's speech but it must've been good since all the punditries are having hard time parsing her words for any hint of disingenuousness.

 

The highlight for me was Denis Kucinich - He served up red meat taking the Bush administration to task with his Wake Up America speech.

 

“If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold,” Kucinich said. “World records for violations of national and international laws … we can't afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America.

 

“The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America. The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing. Wake up, America. The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America. They want to take your Social Security. Wake up, America.

 

“This administration can tap our phones. They can't tap our creative spirit,” he said. “They can open our mail. They can't open economic opportunities. They can track our every move. They lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline and electricity skyrockets.

 

They skillfully played our post-9/11 fears and allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many. Every day we get the color orange while the oil companies, the insurance companies, the speculators, the war contractors get the color green.

 

“Wake up, America! This is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is call for you to go from down to up. Up with the rights of workers. Up with wages. Up with fair trade. Up with creating millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our bridges, ports and water systems."

 

“Up with health care for all,” he said. “Up with education for all. Up with homeownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden!”

 

[Che -Guevara]

^I enjoyed the Montana governor's speech-entertaining guy.

[Pujah]

^^ Yeah he was great too bad not too many people saw since the cable networks didn't carry it live. Everyone should watch it on CSPAN no self important talking heads ruining it for you

 

By the way your governor was good too, did you see his speech?

[Sir-Qalbi-Adeyg]

DENVER, Colorado (AFP) — Republicans Wednesday crowed with delight at Hillary Clinton's show-stopping convention speech, claiming she had helped to build their case against Democrat White House hopeful Barack Obama.

 

Commentators seized on the fact that in a speech full of drama, tears and laughter in which Clinton repeatedly urged her supporters to unite to elect Obama president, she never once said he was ready to lead.

 

"I think she gave a very good speech from her point of view and our point of view, but not necessarily for Barack Obama's point of view," former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani told Fox News.

 

"She never really answered the key question, is he prepared to be president? Which is the issue she put out there, rather dramatically, during the primaries."

 

Even as the last cheers were still echoing through the vast Denver convention center, the campaign of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain swiftly tore Clinton's speech to shreds late Tuesday.

 

"Senator Clinton ran her presidential campaign making clear that Barack Obama is not prepared to lead as commander in chief," Tucker Bounds, spokesman for Obama's Republican rival John McCain, said in a statement.

 

"Nowhere tonight did she alter that assessment. Nowhere tonight did she say that Barack Obama is ready to lead. Millions of Hillary Clinton supporters and millions of Americans remain concerned about whether Barack Obama is ready to be president."

 

The former first lady's speech held the packed center spellbound, but did not sound like she planned to bow out of politics any time soon.

 

Instead, passed over by Barack Obama in his search for a running mate two months after her own campaign folded, Senator Clinton wrote her own history of her campaign, and seemed to be spotlighting her future role.

 

"This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win," Clinton said, in comments about November's election, but which might have referred to her own political hopes.

 

Influential commentator Michael Barone writing in U.S. News magazine said the speech put everyone on notice that Clinton could indeed make another historic tilt at the White House in 2012.

 

The speech was "good, but not quite very good, for Barack Obama in 2008. Even better, if things should turn out like they might, for Hillary Clinton in 2012," he wrote.

 

"What was missing was much in the way of description of Barack Obama. What kind of man is he? One who supports the same positions she does," he asked.

 

"Has she looked deep into his heart and found something worthy? No evidence here that she had. Would he be a good commander-in-chief? Not a word on that, as the McCain campaign quickly and gleefully noted."

 

And Rush Limbaugh, the high priest of conservative talk radio, told Fox News that the adoration of Clinton late Tuesday was "the first time since 1976 that a convention has been more excited about a loser than a winner."

 

Despite calling on her millions of disappointed fans to vote Obama, Clinton "de-linked herself from him," Limbaugh argued.

 

"Those two both need for Obama to lose and they're going to do whatever they can after they leave Denver to see that that happens," he argued.

[Che -Guevara]

Pujah...Yup I did. I had to switch to CSPAN to catch it all. He did ok.

[Sophist]

Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention

 

I am honoured to be here tonight to support Barack Obama. And to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden, though as you'll soon see, he doesn't need any help from me. I love Joe Biden, and America will too.

 

What a year we Democrats have had. The primary began with an all-star line-up and came down to two remarkable Americans locked in a hard fought contest to the very end. The campaign generated so much heat it increased global warming.

 

In the end, my candidate didn't win. But I'm very proud of the campaign she ran: she never quit on the people she stood up for, on the changes she pushed for, on the future she wants for all our children. And I'm grateful for the chance Chelsea and I had to tell Americans about the person we know and love.

 

I'm not so grateful for the chance to speak in the wake of her magnificent address last night. But I'll do my best.

 

Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she'll do everything she can to elect Barack Obama.

 

That makes two of us.

 

Actually that makes 18m of us - because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November.

 

Here's why.

 

Our nation is in trouble on two fronts: The American dream is under siege at home, and America's leadership in the world has been weakened.

 

Middle-class and low-income Americans are hurting, with incomes declining; job losses, poverty and inequality rising; mortgage foreclosures and credit card debt increasing; healthcare coverage disappearing; and a big spike in the cost of food, utilities and gasoline.

 

Our position in the world has been weakened by too much unilateralism and too little cooperation; a perilous dependence on imported oil; a refusal to lead on global warming; a growing indebtedness and a dependence on foreign lenders; a severely burdened military; a backsliding on global non-proliferation and arms control agreements; and a failure to consistently use the power of diplomacy, from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Central and Eastern Europe.

 

Clearly, the job of the next president is to rebuild the American dream and restore America's standing in the world.

 

Everything I learned in my eight years as president and in the work I've done since, in America and across the globe, has convinced me that Barack Obama is the man for this job.

 

He has a remarkable ability to inspire people, to raise our hopes and rally us to high purpose. He has the intelligence and curiosity every successful President needs. His policies on the economy, taxes, healthcare and energy are far superior to the Republican alternatives. He has shown a clear grasp of our foreign policy and national security challenges, and a firm commitment to repair our badly strained military. His family heritage and life experiences have given him a unique capacity to lead our increasingly diverse nation and to restore our leadership in an ever more interdependent world. The long, hard primary tested and strengthened him. And in his first presidential decision, the selection of a running mate, he hit it out of the park.

 

With Joe Biden's experience and wisdom, supporting Barack Obama's proven understanding, insight and good instincts, America will have the national security leadership we need.

 

Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world. Ready to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.

 

He will work for an America with more partners and fewer adversaries. He will rebuild our frayed alliances and revitalize the international institutions which help to share the costs of the world's problems and to leverage our power and influence. He will put us back in the forefront of the world's fight to reduce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and to stop global warming. He will continue and enhance our nation's global leadership in an area in which I am deeply involved, the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria, including a renewal of the battle against HIV/AIDS here at home. He will choose diplomacy first and military force as a last resort. But in a world troubled by terror; by trafficking in weapons, drugs and people; by human rights abuses; by other threats to our security, our interests and our values, when he cannot convert adversaries into partners, he will stand up to them.

 

Barack Obama also will not allow the world's problems to obscure its opportunities. Everywhere, in rich and poor countries alike, hardworking people need good jobs; secure, affordable healthcare, food and energy; quality education for their children; and economically beneficial ways to fight global warming. These challenges cry out for American ideas and American innovation. When Barack Obama unleashes them, America will save lives, win new allies, open new markets and create new jobs for our people.

 

Most important, Barack Obama knows that America cannot be strong abroad unless we are strong at home. People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.

 

Look at the example the Republicans have set: American workers have given us consistently rising productivity. They've worked harder and produced more. What did they get in return? Declining wages, less than a quarter as many new jobs as in the previous eight years, smaller healthcare and pension benefits, rising poverty and the biggest increase in income inequality since the 1920s. American families by the millions are struggling with soaring healthcare costs and declining coverage. I will never forget the parents of children with autism and other severe conditions who told me on the campaign trail that they couldn't afford healthcare and couldn't qualify their kids for Medicaid unless they quit work or got a divorce. Are these the family values the Republicans are so proud of? What about the military families pushed to the breaking point by unprecedented multiple deployments? What about the assault on science and the defense of torture? What about the war on unions and the unlimited favors for the well connected? What about Katrina and cronyism?

 

America can do better than that. And Barack Obama will.

 

But first we have to elect him.

 

The choice is clear. The Republicans will nominate a good man who served our country heroically and suffered terribly in Vietnam. He loves our country every bit as much as we all do. As a senator, he has shown his independence on several issues. But on the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American dream and how to restore America's leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.

 

They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22m new jobs down to 5m; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8m Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 and a half million falling into poverty - and millions more losing their health insurance.

 

Now, in spite of all the evidence, their candidate is promising more of the same: More tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that will swell the deficit, increase inequality and weaken the economy. More Band-aids for healthcare that will enrich insurance companies, impoverish families and increase the number of uninsured. More going it alone in the world, instead of building the shared responsibilities and shared opportunities necessary to advance our security and restore our influence.

 

They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more. Let's send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm.

 

My fellow Democrats, 16 years ago, you gave me the profound honour to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.

 

Together, we prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief. Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

 

His life is a 21st-century incarnation of the American dream. His achievements are proof of our continuing progress toward the "more perfect union" of our founders' dreams. The values of freedom and equal opportunity which have given him his historic chance will drive him as president to give all Americans, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability, their chance to build a decent life, and to show our humanity, as well as our strength, to the world.

 

We see that humanity, that strength, and our future in Barack and Michelle Obama and their beautiful children. We see them reinforced by the partnership with Joe Biden, his wife Jill, a dedicated teacher, and their family.

 

Barack Obama will lead us away from division and fear of the last eight years back to unity and hope. If, like me, you still believe America must always be a place called Hope, then join Hillary, Chelsea and me in making senator Barack Obama the next president of the United States.

[Aaliyyah]

Great speech by Bill Clinton, was actually watching it yesterday night.

[LayZie G.]

Pujah, typical of an obama supporter to skip out on one of the best speeches of the convention.

 

Mr and Mrs C were on fire and they delivered what was asked of them. From here on, obama has himself to blame.

 

Next, you should be able to see close to double digit lead in the national polls thanks to the clintons.

 

Che, the governor was pure comedian.

 

 

PS:MN pple, I saw your muslim congressman on tv.

[poolwizard]

The acceptance speech will be delivered at the Mile high Stadium, the home of Denver broncos...it takes about 70,000 pple and it was openned in 2001...the scene will be a celebration like a rock concert. i cant wait...i know Obama will take charge!

[poolwizard]

Did you guys see the speech...if u did not see it, u missed on history...Barack Obama delivered the speech of his life time...he looked so comfortable on the stage like he was having one on one conversation with the crowd..gee this man is amazing...He spelled his plans for the future and also pinpointed the failures of the bush adminstration....ill be shocked if he is not elected to office....only time will tell.