And Barack Obama is officially the Democratic nominee for the Democratic Party of the United States of America. Hillary Clinton and the New York delegation proudly asked to nominate Obama by acclamation after half of the states have placed their votes. Today was a great sign that no one in leadership is bitter. Hillary initiated the vote for Obama.I did vote for Senator Clinton because I was elected by my fellow supporters to vote for her. It was not easy for me to choose. Many other pledged delegates for Clinton ended up voting for Obama. I did not vote in the convention hall but in the registration desk during breakfast.
Behind the scenes there were a few mistakes in the votes. Arkansas which voted for Hillary around 70% placed all of their votes unanimously for Obama. But at least 3 delegates voted for Hillary. California, after the grandiose speech about how great the state is, the party chair, was forced to pass as opposed to voting. Apparently they wanted to get all of the votes in before they placed their mark down.
John Kerry, that boring senator from New England was not there; the candidate that everyone wanted him to be in 2004 came out and tore into John McCain. Kerry's theme was McCain has a reckless foreign policy which will further needlessly harm our troops. If John McCain got elected I am generally fearful that wars with other nations will continue.
Candidate McCain, the new label for McCain, is what is being driven home. With retired generals coming out strong for Obama, it shows that the wanna-be general McCain would lead us down the wrong path. A shocking scene was with Major Duckworth who was shot down in her helicopter gave a powerful and moving speech about Obama's supporting our troops when they are home. It really came full circle when she walked away from the podium showing her two prosthetic legs.
There is no question that party unity is getting done here. Bill Clinton's style of capturing everyone's attention the room and holding it for 20 minutes was at its best that night. He had three minutes of a standing ovation from the crowd as he walked in. This beat Hillary's two minutes of applause. Worries that Bill Clinton's image is tarnished do not seem to hold true because of the delegates going wild when he spoke. He told the arena to "please stop it, please sit down" but all of us would not listen.
Bill Clinton reminded us why we are all in love with him with his speech. With a crowd going crazy, his speech was filled with moments where the crowd would have cheered for minutes straight. He was filled with quotable moments such as "I am here, first, to support Barack Obama" and "the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander in Chief. Sound familiar?"
Too bad he could not have been elected for a third term.
Biden's cheering entrance helped show that everyone is onboard with this experienced man. Biden as common with most vice presidential candidates is the attack dog and Biden shined at it. He talked pocket book issues that affect every American. The new theme will be "Barack Obama was right, John McCain was wrong" This will resonate with everyone because of the Iraq War and McCain denouncing his legislation that he drafted himself. Democrats will throw back right at McCain changed his policy. It is sad that the "Maverick" has completely changed the policy once that he started running for president. He now votes around 90% of the time with Bush and we all seen where that has taken our nation. Attacks on McCain are beginning to get harsh against him and will ramp up continuously. But we all know that the attacks on Obama will be even harsher because they know that it is one of the few ways that they could win. People maybe are tired of the personal attacks but they have proven to work.
The main stream media did not find the conflict that they were looking for. Out of those PUMA's in the crowd, the media will only interview the one or two in the entire California delegation of 441 delegates who feel that way. I did not see any actions today beyond interviews here and there today. Hillary clearly calmed the radicals down.
On other convention activities, Ariana Huffington spoke to New Democrats Network (NDN) about the new media such as blogs and her online site. I have come to realize through her speech and the way I have been seeing the cameras focus on that 1% that the main stream media has lost its way. It should be about finding the truth not both sides of the story. It is not through the left side of the argument and the right side of the argument that reality is always found in the middle. Sometimes one side is so wrong, they do not even deserve airtime, such as 9-11 conspiracy theorists to one extreme and global warming deniers on the lesser extreme.
Before I forget the California delegation party was at this great museum in Denver where I got to meet CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen !
