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.

Through a random Wikipedia journey I came across the Wikipedia page for Raul Castro. I came across a section where they quoted from one of his speeches talking about him taking over for Fidel Castro: “Fidel is irreplaceable, unless we all replace him together.”

That line is more than just a cute sound bite, but also a fascinating socio-anthropological cue. It emphasizes the communal aspect of a communist government (well, the ideal one anyways) which is not something seen in most American speeches. It made me suddenly realize that great speeches do not necessarily use the same vocabulary. There might have been a time and place where the words of Kennedy wouldn’t have inspired the masses. A whole new vocabulary of persuasion has to be invented based on what the people of your country want.

This semi-revelation also opened my eyes a little about the current presidential race: Barack Obama’s speeches bring hope and inspiration to millions, but there are many out there who wouldn’t be inspired if only because he’s using the wrong words, or he’s accentuating the wrong things. Obama is obviously aware of the power of targeted language since he often injects phrases evangelicals would recognize when he speaks of his religion.

But it goes beyond that. Using certain words to affect is a subset of this larger idea. This is more than selecting the right words, it’s about selecting the right concepts and the right words. This may have seemed to obvious to many, and indeed it’s obvious to me now, but that doesn’t dull the impact it had on me. The depth of effort a speech-writer must go through to perfect the image of the speech-giver was so much more abstract until I read that understated phrase.