I should write something big and grand here filled with purple prose — and I definitely considered it — but tonight the words to listen to tonight are those Barack Obama will speak shortly. He will be the next President of the United States of America. This moment will be remembered by all who experienced it. The words are hard to come by right now, not because I’m crying or overcome with emotion. I’m humbled. This was more than a watershed moment. This was more than an attack on republicanism. This was more than a breakthrough in race relations. This was something else. I want to say more, but right now there are simply too many things racing through my mind about how much this changes… everything.

Tonight was the first night of the Democratic Convention where I saw most of the evening material. Previous nights I saw snippets of the speeches and a bit of the after the fact analysis but missed most of the coverage because I finally restarted my exercise regimen after over a month of laziness. But tonight I was still sore from the previous two nights so a bit of politics seemed like a good idea. Besides, what I saw of Hillary’s speech last night convinced me I should take the time.

First of all, Bill Clinton’s speech was really good and was the best so far at explaining the core problems of the republican party. Some of the online pundits are saying that his arguments against the last 25 years of Republican policy would have been better if focused on just the last 8 years, but I think that the very problem is that they’re trying to sustain decades old policies without reevaluating them based on new evidence. Obviously, Bush’s policies are broken, but they’re not broken solely due to Bush’s incompetence, the deeply entrenched problems of the Republican party clearly contributed.

I do think that Hillary’s speech last night, or what I saw of it, was a bit better in its rhetoric, a bit more lyrical and driving, but Bill Clinton’s speech had more depth, more reasoning, much more information about why McCain was the wrong choice and why Obama was the right one. And of course, he let fly those magic words: “Barack Obama is ready to lead.” and hearing that coming from a former president carries a lot of weight.

I see the Clintons’ two speeches as a one two punch. The first telling Hillary’s supporters to really think about why the voted for Hillary and why they shouldn’t vote for McCain. It was a very feminist-oriented speech with many references to the suffrage movement and the great strides her campaign made to eliminating the inequalities between genders our society still grapples with. The second speech was much broader, attacking the Republicans for claiming that Obama is too inexperienced, just what they said about Bill in ’92. It also touched on why our foreign policy needs to change, and that part of the speech left the best most quotable line from his entire speech where he said that America should lead by the power of their example and not by example of their power.

After Clinton, I saw a bit of John Kerry’s speech but not the whole thing. While it did bring up some good points and continued the attack on McCain, I found myself having trouble listening to it because Kerry’s delivery was lacking. Basically, even though I agreed with what he said, he still sounded like a tool.

Finally, Biden closed out the night with a retelling of his and Obama’s life stories, emphasizing the decisions Obama made to get to this position, letting the people know that this is someone who cares about the nation and genuinely wants to fix it and isn’t just some politician seeking power. In regards to his attacks on McCain, I thought the first was bad and reminiscent of McCain “that’s not change we can believe in… [disturbing chuckle]” speech — though not as bad, half because of Biden’s delivery and half because the audience was willing to at least feign excitement — but I thought the second was really good and probably connected with many more people. For weeks and months now people from every corner of the political realm have been questioning Obama’s judgment and ability to lead the nation. Biden’s repeated refrain of “McCain was wrong. Obama was right.” was really good at showing that just because McCain’s been in the game longer doesn’t mean he’s the better man for the job.

I also want to make a special note of Beau Biden. His introductory speech for his father was amazing. It truly and honestly moved me and I welled up a few times. That guy’s going places if he wants to.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed the speeches from the DNC so far and thought they’ve painted a compelling argument against McCain as much as it has been for Obama. And watching all of this convincing compelling rhetoric demanding change and improvement for our government definitely got me fired up and ready to go. I can hardly wait for Obama to turn these four nights of speeches into a Grand Slam.

I don’t talk politics all that much on this site, but the fact that McCain is gaining ground on Obama despite being the poorer choice for every rational metric is driving me crazy. The image above is one of the most telling images about the disparity between McCain’s and Obama’s campaigns.

At first glance, McCain’s seems better because he just drops all taxes across the board. But you will then quickly notice that not all taxes are equal: the rich get huge tax breaks, and the poor get hardly any. Meanwhile Obama taxes the top 1% richest people more and gives the poorest much bigger tax breaks. 60% of tax paying citizens, the bottom three tax brackets, save anywhere from 3 to 50 times more money under Obama’s plan.

So the super-rich lose more of their income, but retain their super-richness, and the poor and middle class families get a tax break, all while losing less money overall allowing for the massive country deficit to be recovered faster. How is anyone still supporting McCain?