Michelle Obama’s total knockout speech last night, like Ann Romney’s total knockout speech last week, is another grievous indication of the leadership and legitimacy crisis in American politics.
For what does it say that they, and several other speakers — the Mormons who paid tribute to Mitt Romney’s generosity last week, the mother of a grievously ill child who paid tribute to ObamaCare last night — are better at speaking to the American people about the issues directly affecting them and the country than 99 percent of the politicians whose job it is to represent the American people?
Even Clint Eastwood’s controversial stand-up routine represented a dramatic shift in tone from the cookie-cutter blather that passes for political rhetoric these days — and gave people something to talk about and argue about and hash over for days.
You can count on one hand the number of speeches by elected officials that seize the screen and make you pay close attention. Sen. Marco Rubio did it last week. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick did it last night just before prime time with an exuberant barn-burner — witty and populist and very, very personally insulting.
But over and over again last night, as was true over and over again last week, the parade of politicians was like a beauty pageant without the beauty.
Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, who is touted as a 2016 frontrunner, tried to turn the phrase “forward, not back” into an audience-response chant – but was so ham-fisted about it that the utterly eager delegates in the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte couldn’t figure out how to do it in rhythm.
Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sibelius, now the Health and Human Services secretary, was tasked with giving a full-throated defense of ObamaCare that might have been designed to serve as an anesthetic once all the anesthetists retire due to the implementation of ObamaCare.
The keynoter last night, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, came across (to me at least) as staggeringly false — a grinning, glad-handing post-bailout salesman just trying to get you into a Chevy Volt today and telling you he really, really likes the way you buy a car.
But then came Mrs. Obama, and everything changed.
She’s been at this for years, of course, so her presentation did not leave one agape at its astounding fluency the way Ann Romney’s did — given that Mrs. Romney was entirely new to the national stage.
No matter. Even though the biographical stuff about her upbringing and her early married life with Barack was a rehash of her 2008 convention address, the tone and rhetoric were far better — and were used forcefully as part of a sophisticated effort to answer and rebut Republican and Romney charges against her husband and his re-election.
It was her job not only to rally the Democratic faithful who are showing a distinct lack of the enthusiasm they showed in 2008, but to go at the effective Republican use of Obama’s “you didn’t build that” verbal slip.
They believe in the American dream, she said, and do not resent the success of others, but the dream must be something everyone can reach — and for that, she said implicitly, you need the helping hand of government. Specifically, you need Barack Obama’s hand.
Who would know better how loving, how gentle, how caring and considerate that hand could be than the woman who held it?
“I have seen first-hand that being president doesn’t change who you are — it reveals who you are,” she said — a line her speechwriter should be proud of.
Or should he? For the problem with a line that memorable is that it comes to have an independent life. If the presidency “reveals who you are,” then Republicans have been given an opening to argue that this presidency reveals the Obama at center stage on Day One of the Democratic Convention.
And while the speakers made it very clear that Obama is not a rich out-of-touch guy like Mitt Romney, they also made it clear that for them, he’s an unabashedly liberal culture warrior who pushed through ObamaCare, changed his tune on gay marriage and supports abortion without limit.
Remember that the one piece of polling data that has remained remarkably consistent over time is this: Twice as many people say they’re conservative as say they’re liberal.
In his wow of a speech, Deval Patrick declaimed: “It’s time for Democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe.” To which Mitt Romney might respond: “Oh, by all means. I have $300 million to put into commercials. Go ahead. Make my day.”