Last day of the DNC Convention

Interesting evening. I was not impressed by the speech given by Barak Obama this evening. It was the same old same old list of liberal ideas. Yes there was some differences in tone but the ideas were the same. The speech was full of sound bits and nothing else. It seemed staged. The big screens, at the end, were covered with streamers which made it look like they had been dropped on the candidates but they were not. Also interesting, as I am listening to CNN, they also must not have thought it was that great as they are discussing the GOP convention and what might happen if the hurricane lands along the Gulf Coast. They were talking about delaying the start of the GOP convention, about McCain going down there or even Bush not coming to Minneapolis. The end of the evening would have been even better if Hilliary had come out on stage. This coming week is going to be interesting to see how the GOP counters this convention.

Two other observations: one, the ad McCain ran this evening throughout the convention congratulating Obama was a class act. I can't imagine Obama doing the same. Two, it really was a strange way of ending the convention. I was surprised that he did not refer more to MLK and his I have a Dream speech. The music that was played during the fireworks was a little grand and too over the top. It just played into the Republican story of him. The set was also a little too over the top.

One last comment. I have been talking with the students in my small group about the expectation game. The GOP is predicting a 15 point for Obama. The Obama folks are saying it might be a 5-6 point bump. This year it will be strange since there will be no time for the events to sink in. Obama will have tonight and tomorrow morning to be the focus in the media and then McCain will take over. He is going to announce his VP selection tomorrow at noon. The week end talk shows will be discussing this selection and this will help to mute the bump. According to the latest polls, since Biden was named to be on the ticket, Obama had lost points. So we will see what kind of a bump, if any, he receives.

A funnel cake and a rose window, can life get any better?