More Conventioning

Anyone else think that CNN is trying really hard to root for a good result for Obama? I understand that they have to have some partisans on, but I just don't feel like they are making any efforts at impartiality.

This gets to a major criticism that I have of political commentary...where is the unbiased analysis? Why does everyone have to be in someone's camp? In a sporting event, for example, there are announcers that just tell you what happens and what it means, even if they are rooting for one team or another. Even the Red Sox announcers can tell when someone is doing bad and it might hurt the team.

So, why can't you find political commentators who can just...independent of who they hope wins...say what something means? Even if you are a Democrat, you should be able to objectively tell when something is good or bad for you. Joe Scarborough, who is on MSNBC and is a VERY conservative guy, is actually pretty good at this. He is clearly a biased commentator, but he has the ability to step back and say, essentially "Sure I hate the guy, but this will help him get more votes," or "I want this guy to win, I think he is the right guy and I will vote for him, but this thing will cost him votes."

Why is that so hard? They should make an effort to get more people onto TV who understand the "sport" of politics and can make a judgement on who did the best to help their election cause, not just people who are in favor of one particular partisan agenda.

Moving on...last night's recap: I was disappointed.

After Hillary Clinton was so strong on Tuesday, I felt like Bill would tear the house down (like he did in 2004 for Kerry, when he was really outstanding). And, all of the words were right, but I just didn't feel like he was totally into it. His cadence was off, he didn't have the same energy and he just seemed a little bit off. Some of that is that he is generally a great public speaker and the bar is set high, but I didn't feel like he brought his best effort. I have seen him better.

I also felt like Biden struggled a bit. He stumbled over some words, and he misspoke a couple of times...like "And now McCain is promising $200 million in new taxes for big oil,", which I am pretty sure is the OPPOSITE of what he meant to say. And he is also the wrong guy to criticize McCain's decision making when he has a) been right alongside him on many of those decisions, and b) said three months ago that he would be honored to run as McCain's VP.

Obama's appearance at the end was well-timed, although at first I thought it was a bad idea. Showing up obscured everything else that happened, and really showed up Biden...but since I didn't think Biden was great, it sort of saved the night for them a little bit.

It will be interesting to see how the polls reflect this convention. The early ones show very little bump so far for Obama (and some actually show more progress for McCain), but he obviously has the chance to turn that around tonight. I expect that he will be fantastic...he is simply too good a public speaker not to be.

But that runs risks, too...if the bar was high for B. Clinton, it is through the roof for Obama. I think he will deliver, though.

I guess we will know soon;-)