"No way, no how, no McCain."
That clear enough for everyone? The Obama campaign would be wise to start printing bumper stickers, because folks, that's the line of the convention so far. Those were the words uttered by New York Senator Hillary Clinton, about seven paragraphs into a speech that received resounding cheers and adulation. "Whether you voted for me or voted for Barack, the time is now to unite as a party with a single purpose."
The bar was high for Clinton tonight. She walked into the room facing a difficult triangulation. As if making a strong call for unity and promote Obama as a candidate wasn't hard enough, it fell to Clinton to be the prime time speaker that would actually take a shot at John McCain and the Bush administration - something most observers found lacking from the keynote address.
Tactically, Clinton went about the task by finding the intersection between the political and the personal, as she often did on the stump. Figures from the campaign trail loomed large in her remarks: single mothers, young vets, and children with concerns beyond their years. "Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it...for all the people in this country who feel invisible."
Clinton hit hard at both McCain and Bush, early and often. Of the latter, she spoke of a "squandered promise" and "failed leadership." Here's what she said of McCain:
"Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend. He has served our country with honor and courage. But we don't need four more years...of the last eight years. More economic stagnation, and less affordable healthcare. More high gas prices, and less atlernative energy. More jobs getting shipped overseas, and fewer jobs created here. More skyrocketing debt, home foreclosures, and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families. More war, less diplomacy. More of a government where the privileged come first, and everyone else comes last.
John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it's okay when women don't earn equal pay for equal work.
With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities, Because they're awfully hard to tell apart."
One also couldn't help but feel like Clinton's lengthy quoting of Harriet Tubman was a nifty bit of triangulation as well. With gender and race swirling in the flotsam of the larger campaign, and a convention commemorating anniversaries dear to those who love the civil rights won by women and by African-Americans, the invocation of Tubman's "keep going" call was a strong invocation of a common cause. "But remember," Clinton concluded, "before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama president." Emphasis hers.
Clinton also took the time to pay tribute to Arkansas Democratic Party Chair Bill Gwatney and Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones during her remarks. And she hit a humorous high note when she thanked her supporters who formed "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits."