John Kerry greets the Democratic National Convention with a salute Thursday night in Boston as he begins his speech accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president. (Associated Press photo)
Belated Democratic National Convention wrap-up
My loyal readers are probably wondering why I've written so little about last week's Democratic National Convention.
There are a few reasons:
One, I endorsed John Kerry more than a year ago on this weblog. While Kerry is relatively new to millions of Americans, with all due respect, he's old hat to me. I've been immersed in the Kerry campaign for several months and several weeks ago I decided to take a quasi-summer break from the Kerry effort so that, hopefully, I am rested up so that I can be fired up this fall. (That said, I think that Kerry is going to make a great president. I called it correctly back in June 2003.)
Two, I'm not big on the Democratic Party, which I think lost much of its heart and soul during the Bill Clinton-Al Gore years, when Clinton's strategy toward the vicious Republicans -- who never got over the fact that Clinton won the presidency in 1992 -- seemed to be, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Gore gives a helluva speech now; I wish he'd had that fire in his belly in 2000.
I've always considered myself on loan to the Democratic Party from the Green Party for this presidential election. I feel like a man without a party, because while the Green Party has a great ideology but little political power, the Democratic Party has considerable political power but an ideology that has been drifting further and further away from the populism that the Democratic Party used to be known for, and has become more and more about fundraising and winning elections -- or trying to win elections, anyway. (After the dismal 2000 and 2002 elections, the Democratic Party hasn't earned anyone's support.)
We'll have to see if Kerry and John Edwards reform the Democratic Party, the way Howard Dean claimed that he would if he won the Democratic presidential nomination -- or if Kerry and Edwards will settle into the complacency and centrism of the Clinton-Gore era that lost the Democratic Party its spine. I'm giving the Democratic Party one more chance with Kerry and Edwards.
Finally, what could I have said about the convention speeches when I'm a member of the choir to whom the preachers were preaching? "Yeah, what he said!" or "Yeah, what she said!" isn't good blogging. (The Republican National Convention, on the other hand, should provide ample blogging fodder.)
I will remark that Kerry's speech delivery has been improving. I first saw Kerry in person back in September in San Francisco at a small rally (small because this was before Kerry's campaign miraculously came back from the dead in January). Kerry was moderately inspiring. He said the right things, but you couldn't exactly call him exciting. (I will add that at that rally I got to shake Kerry's hand and have a few words with him; if he becomes our next president, as I think that he will, he'll be the first U.S. president whose hand I shook and with whom I got to speak briefly.)
The second time I saw Kerry in person was in February at a rally in Oakland. It was a huge rally because Kerry had won not only Iowa and New Hampshire, but had won 18 of the 20 Democratic primaries and caucuses up to that point. I could have gotten his autograph or shaken his hand again at that rally had I been aggressive, but I didn't feel like fighting the crowd. Kerry's delivery had greatly improved since September; I found him considerably more inspiring than he had been in September, and he was a hit with the crowd.
I watched Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night on a big-screen television in a room full of people. I think he did a good job. A lot of his points and one-liners I'd heard before, but, even though Kerry isn't exactly new to me, there were several things he said that had me clapping and yelling, and my throat was sore afterward from a particularly loud whoop he'd induced.
Kerry still isn't exciting, but that's not what the United States needs right now, an entertainer for president. It needs a president who is mature, intelligent and stable and who puts the nation's needs above the greed and the war profiteering of corporations. (And it will be nice to have a president who actually fucking won the popular vote and who wasn't installed by a 5-4 vote of the U.S. Supreme Court.)
I admire Kerry and Edwards just for being willing to follow "President" Bush and "Vice President" Cheney. For much of, if not most of, their first term, President Kerry and Vice President Edwards will have their hands full mopping up the messes and putting out the fires; it will be difficult for them to enact a progressive agenda when most of their energies are going toward just returning us to normalcy after the four-year Bush-Cheney frat party in which the United States and Iraq was their frat house to trash.
It won't be over on Nov. 2; Nov. 2 will be just the beginning. President Kerry and Vice President Edwards will need our patience and our understanding that before a progressive agenda can be enacted, we have a huge clean-up job to do.
9:23:31 PM 
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