Hillary speaks tonight, Bill tomorrow. There's a fair amount of grumbling among Obama's supporters about this arrangement, viewed as an ill-advised capitulation to an excessive Clinton demand (shamelessness has long been part of their modus operandi, and why not? It has served them very well over the years). What's the point of giving them two nights rather than one? some worried Democrats are demanding. Why create a patina of party unity, inspired by the noble old figure of Ted Kennedy, and then build up Obama's personal bona fides courtesy of his elegant wife, all on the first night, and then step all over the message over the course of the following two? Why hadn't the convention organizers, wondered one journalist friend of mine who finds the situation almost laughably inappropriate, given the two Clintons a portion of the first night, saluted them for their past contributions and for a race well run, and then said Hasta la vista, have a safe flight home, thereby allowing the remainder of the convention to get on with the business of launching Barack Obama's fall campaign? Instead, we not only get two days of potential psychodrama, but also two different, creative, instructive demonstrations of consummate passive-aggression.
My wife and I ran into Congressman George Miller, (D-CA), today, while we were scurrying around town trying to score a variety of credentials (yes, absolutely including my press credentials, and I won't say anymore about that except that I have to go through this nonsense every morning; the convention press office is not providing week-long documentation to journalists, and I even saw Tina Brown in the queue ahead of me this morning, forced to go through the same rigamarole as the rest of us ordinary ink-stained mortals). George is a wonderfully affable man with a solar-powered smile, a big bushy moustache and a great belly-shaking laugh. In fact, were it not for his California tan and his California casual style sense, you might actually mistake him for Santa Claus. A Santa Claus who has spent the days since Christmas at the gym; George is a burly scrapper of a man, but I don't want to give the false impression he's portly. Our conversation rapidly turned to the twinned Clinton speeches, tonight's and Wednesday's. "So, what do you think?" he asked us. "Blood on the floor?" I said, "Oh, that's a given, George. The only question is which of them will draw the greater quantity: The guy struggling with his anger issues, or the woman who will profess full support while deftly wielding a surgeon's scalpel?" He rolled his eyes at this and said, "Oh God!" Which I took to be confirmation.
The question is not whether Hillary will praise Obama tonight. Of course she will. Nor even whether she will damn him with faint praise. Of course she won't. She's a professional, and she knows what her formal obligations are. The real question is whether she will be signaling to her more extreme supporters, with a variety of winks and nods and eloquent lacunae, that she'd quite enjoy seeing them make a little trouble.
If she follows that course, the ground is definitely fertile. While I've witnessed one or two other puny demonstrations since arriving here, mostly on behalf of one Jesus Christ, who, as far as I can tell, is sitting out this election (but who apparently heartily dislikes homosexuals; one of his supporters had a sign that said, "Gay Rights --- If it's morally wrong, it can't be politically correct"), but beyond those few crazies who attend every convention of both major parties, the only street protests I've witnessed personally were three fair-sized Clintonites-for-McCain demonstrations. And these people, men and women, seemed as angrily, passionately aggrieved as their actual arguments were incoherent. If they are led to believe Hillary is in any way encouraging their efforts, their numbers will multiply and their indignation can only grow. And it's almost impossible to say what the senator and the former president have in mind; they have been playing a double-game for months now, and just yesterday one of their closest minions, the miserable lickspittle Lanny Davis, was on TV saying he could consider voting for McCain on the basis of experience. This on the very same day the McCain campaign ran an ad quoting Hillary Clinton to the same effect. It's hard for me to imagine Lanny Davis making such a statement without encouragement from his liege and lady, and downright impossible for me to imagine him making it if expressly instructed not to do so.
But my reaction to the speech itself will have to wait till tomorrow (or, just possibly, as a very late addendum to this posting, if I'm feeling especially vehement or especially reckless). We go from the primetime convention session itself --- which includes Hillary's speech, of course, as its highlight --- directly to a reception for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, after which we have a tentative date for a very late dinner with some friends who will also be attending the Pelosi event. If I'm still sober at the end of such an evening, or even compos mentis, then I've obviously done something seriously wrong.
Erik Tarloff is a novelist and writer, and a former occasional speechwriter to Bill Clinton. Along with James Crabtree, he is blogging for First Drafts from the Democratic convention in Denver this week
Denver dispatches - Erik Tarloff - Tuesday 26th August
August 27, 2008
