Dowbrigade

Somehow, now that The Man is up on the stage, giving “the most important speech of his life”, it seems like almost an afterthought. But we came all this way, we may as well blog it.

He opens with, “My name is John Kerry, and I am reporting for duty.” This line gets big reaction. He goes on to talk about his mother….always a safe topic, and his Dad. He cadences are relaxed and the emotion is coming through.

We know that Kerry’s rep as a speaker is “arrogant” and “aloof:” but his tone and inflection always sounded pretty natural to us. This is probably due to our spending too much time in effete Eastern universities.

And yet, he seems to be missing that magical empathy with his audience of truly great public speakers. They seem to sense when the audience is about to burst into applause, and pause perfectly, to let the wave of enthusiasm wash over him before going on, as if on cue, just as the sound dies down. Kerry acts that instinctive timing, at least tonight, and occasionally hurries on onto the applause, his words lost in the previous wave of approbation.

Ohh, he just promised to appoint an Attorney General who WILL uphold the constitution, bringing the biggest reaction so far. “Outsourcing” seems to be a powerful negative buss word, eliciting a chorus of “Booos”.

Looks like he’s had some dental work lately, he;s flashing those pearly whites like he wants to show them off. He is now lauding his running mate, an obligatory nod, but it sounds sincere. Camera on Edwards, smiling, thumbs up, projected onto the Jumbotron.

He is starting to drone now, not even pausing to make sure we are still with him, half of each tag line is lost in the applause and no cheat-sheet press copy of the speech to follow along or quote as was the case with the majority of the speakers.

But the crowd seems to be eating it up. Good line “The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to”. Why does he continue talking through the cheering? We can’t hear a word! Is he afraid if he slows down and pauses during the cheering breaks the speech will go so long people will get bored and leave? Is he on a tight schedule because of planned commercial breaks?

“I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as President.” We heard you John, you can move on now.

John just said “Help is on the Way”, which makes much more sense to us than the variation Edwards launched at us repeatedly last night, “Hope is on the way”.

“The future doesn’t belong to fear, it belongs to freedom”

One of the reasons political oratory has seen such a decline in recent years is that politicians, even obviously smart ones like John Kerry, are being forced, or are forcing themselves, to use a limited vocabulary and relatively simple syntax. Someone must have told them they need to talk in language ALL Americans can understand.

But we remain romantically attached to the idea that one of the many roles of President is to raise the level of political discourse, to educate and uplift his fellow countrymen, and to capture with eloquence and even poetry the simple yet profound songs of the American soul.

Suddenly, all around Blogger’s row, a cascade of babble in half a dozen foreign languages has broken out. There are television lights to the right of us and more to the left. What’s happening is that during these few precious minutes that Kerry is on the big stage in the background, every single foreign correspondent in the joint (most of whom seem to have been located up here in the nosebleed section with the Bloggers) wants to grab some face time on camera with The Man visible and audible in the background. They are just jabbering away a mile a minute, making it almost impossible for the Americans in the vicinity to hear the words of their next President.

C’mon guys, you don’t see the Dowbrigade going over to YOUR countries and talking during a presidential campaign speech.

Kerry is talking about jobs now, he is mixing emotional appeal and designed applause lines with a few specific details of the policies he proposes

“We WON’T raise taxes on the middle class, and I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy” Well, that takes care of tax policy

“Treat teachers like the professionals that they are” There’s a line a teacher has to love, although we hope that treatment includes a healthy raise.

“Now I’m going to tell you something that Teddy Roosevelt never said….go to JohnKerry.Com“

“Rather than claim that God is on Our Side, I am going to pray reverently that WE are on GOD’S side” GREAT line….

Damn, there he goes talking through the applause again, we missed a couple of points. The fact that that annoys us is a good sign, we guess. Some of the other bloggers seem to be looking at a version of the speech on their screens; maybe we missed it in our INBOX.

“Our best days are still to come” For a final, climatic line this one leaves us limp, that that is even a question smacks of whistling past the graveyard.

So it over, that’s it. The nation, and the world, has been introduced to Sen. Kerry If he can manage to keep from shooting himself in the foot over the next 100 days, he has a good chance of emerging as the most powerful man on the planet. But a lot can happen in 100 days.

We will wait a day or two before we really try to figure out what all this means and how we feel about it. Right now we are so exhausted we could sleep right here in this hard wooden stadium seat. We want to slink down the stairs and into the cool night air, and make our way home to bed and the beautiful Norma Yvonne. But first the balloons…

And here they come……..