And it was spectacular
It went viral in a hurry
Thank you Barack. We needed that.
David Kurtz at TPM has a nice wrap up of the Obamas’ speeches last night:
Barack and Michelle Obama welcomed the Democratic convention to their hometown of Chicago, with sterling back-to-back speeches that harkened to the brighter pre-Trump days.
Neither has lost a step as orators, with precision timing and panache that very few politicians have ever mustered, except that Michelle is not a politician and this was never her day job.
While he struck familiar themes from his two-terms as president and wove them into the Harris-Walz campaign messaging in a way designed to make her a natural successor to his legacy, it was that pantomimed dart at the manhood of the man who did succeed him that brought down the house.
He was great as always. But in spite of his usual rave up Red state, Blue state stuff toward the end, it was much harder hitting against the opposition than I remember, even aside from the comedy.
A lot of silly analysis overnight about Michelle eschewing her motto – “When they go low, we go high” – as if calling out racism and misogyny is going low.
“Going small is petty, it’s unhealthy, and, quite frankly, it’s unpresidential,” Michelle Obama said. “It’s his same old con: doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”
She also unspooled an anti-Trump thread that I haven’t seen Democrats use as often as they might have over the past decade, perhaps because they generally avoid explicit appeals based on class:
They both brought the house down, of course. They’re the best orators in politics and everyone, including the Republicans know it, which really makes them fume.
Here’s Michelle’s entire speech in case you missed it: