Obama-Biden Accept Nomination/DNC Pulling Punches

Barack Obama made history tonight as the first African-American presidential nominee by a major political party.
Joe Biden was also formally nominated. Biden and Bill Clinton gave good speeches finally taking on John McCain, but I don't think the Democratic convention has effectively made the case against John McCain. Too many punches have been pulled, and the GOP will not be so kind next week. This was the last chance the Democrats had to define John McCain, and they have failed so far. There should have been more speeches attacking McCain/Bush/Cheney (like Dennis Kucinich who was censored) and fewer dull speeches like Mark Warner's "Keynote Speech" which put the convention to sleep.

While the focus of the convention has been on Bill and Hillary Clinton supporting Obama, John McCain is now tied with Barack Obama in national polls. While there was formal unity at the convention, a significant number (25-30%) of Hillary supporters say they will not vote for Barack Obama.

I don't expect much of a bounce out of this convention. The Republican convention will continue to tear down Barack Obama and emphasize John McCain as a P.O.W. war hero, and a "maverick." McCain will probably get a significant bounce out of the Republican convention.

I hate to be a party pooper, but a few good speeches are not going to defeat John McCain.

I'm sure Obama will deliver a great speech tomorrow, but he is already being viciously attacked for the staging of that speech by the Republicans and the anti-Obama Clintonistas who do not support Hillary Clinton's call for "party unity."

I suspect that the Republican machine is behind most of the "anti-Obama" Clintonista nonsense, and is using them to divide and weaken the Democratic Party. Part of the blame lies with the vicious campaign Hillary ran against Barack Obama which did question Barack Obama's fitness to be "commander-in-chief". Don't forget that every major attack the McCain campaign has made against Barack Obama (from Rev. Wright to the "terrorist" Ayers, to raising questions about Obama's patriotism and religion) started in the Clinton campaign! (Evidently, Hillary Clinton convinced about 25% of her supporters that Obama is not fit to be President.) In fact, Hillary Clinton made it easy for the McCain campaign to just cut and paste her own ads against Obama.

Bill & Hillary partly atoned for their sins with their great speeches, but it may be too late to repair the damage they caused to Barack Obama.