Well, we’ve made it through four nights of the DNC Convention. So far viewership has been low, considerably below 2016. After three lackluster nights, we found Day 4 to be somewhat better. At least, the Democrats focused on the core voters they need to win, with well planned videos featuring veterans, a fire fighter, and union workers. There were also a few former Republicans who indicated that they were going to vote for Biden. Moreover, there was a fairly well done video featuring former competitors Amy Klobuchar, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and Beto O’Roark. Then Mike Bloomberg contrasted Biden with Trump. The overall message was one of unity among Democrats, even if Bloomberg’s presence triggered half of the Bernie Bros on Twitter.
That said, there were a number of head scratchers. Hostess Julia Louis Dreyfus started the evening by making a very flat joke about Vice President Pence’s name. It was really bad. Then there was the truly bizarre decision to include Donna Hylton, a convicted murderer and kidnapper, as a prominent community activist. Even the video remembering John Lewis reminded one of Joe’s habit of telling falsehoods (ie. his fake story of being arrested protesting apartheid). Performances by John Legend and the Chicks (aka Dixie Chicks) continued the trend of trying to win over the Hollywood vote. We understood the decision to not include Tulsi Gabbard given her takedown of Kamala Harris, but to exclude Julio Castro from the list of competitors seemed like a slight.
Then there was Biden himself who was introduced by his two living children: Hunter and Ashley Biden as well as taped remarks from his son Beau who passed away several years ago from cancer. The intro video was definitely better than the speech itself. His remarks began with the words “give people light” and repeated many of the same lines that he has said in the past. It was certainly not eloquent, but at least he was able to read his lines without committing major gaffes. The speech itself was long, really long, but devoid of substantive content. Biden offered a fairly dark view of America. He claimed that Trump was promising to cut social security. He ended up by focusing on family, retelling the story of his son Beau and promising to bring unity to the nation. It was not a memorable speech, but it was good enough for the mainstream media to pretend that it was.
Day 4 certainly did a better job of appealing to independent and moderate voters, but the entire event will go down as one of the most disjointed conventions ever. There was no overriding vision other than hate of Trump. There were lots of identity politics, a dark view of America, and promises to bring political unity. Biden is an aging politician trying to hang on and win in November. The whole campaign lacks any authentic excitement, but we will find out in November if it was good enough.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 