There were three major speeches tonight, each of them noteworthy in their own way. I'm going to collect a sampling of the best reactions from the blogosphere here.
First, the place of honor must of course go to my man Barack....
No one should allow the tortuous end of this primary journey to obscure the passion and insurrection that made it possible. That passion came from a simple place, the way it often does in politics. It came from the gut instinct that we have lost our way, that the United States needs to start again after the debt, depravity, and destruction of the Bush years. It came from hope that the future need not be as bleak as it seemed not too long ago. It came from a sense that the deepest divisions were not as deep as the political class needed them to be and wanted them to be. And it came from the astonishing nostrum that a liberal, black first-term senator could overturn the biggest machine, the biggest name and the biggest dynasty in Democratic party politics.
He did it, because we did it.
Obama's rally is Hollywood blockbuster to McCain's grade school Christmas play. 20,000 people. Rising intonations. Masterful pacing.
What can you say? This was an excellent speech, brilliantly delivered. Two thoughts: He refused to give ground to McCain on any issue--and neatly turned McCain's challenge that Obama visit Iraq into a challenge that McCain pay greater attention to America. And most striking, he said far more about the historic nature of Clinton's campaign than the historic nature of his own.
Barack Obama is on the precipice of becoming the most powerful black man since the whole concept of "blackness" was invented. I mean this dude could nuke a country. Sorry, but for those who came up under Reagan, Bush etc., the idea of a black man with his finger on the button is mind-blowing in so many incredible ways....
More from Ta-Nehisi:
Obama's so black......he gave his wife dap before his speech. Incredible.
More Andrew Sullivan:
If I needed reassurance that this man is the most formidable force in American politics today, his speech tonight confirmed it. It was shrewd - with an artful positioning on Iraq. It was graceful - with respect for McCain's service and Clinton's tenacity. It was brutal - in turning around McCain's Iraq visit meme to domestic economic woes. It was patriotic - in its evocation of Gettysburg and the Second World War. It was outer-directed: not for Obama the recourse to self-satisfied identity politics of the kind used by the Clintons because they often have nothing else. It was moving. I thought I even saw some suggestions of tears as he remembered his grandmother. It was also rhetorically more powerful than McCain - not by a small amount but by a mile. Put McCain's speech against Obama's - and this was a wipe-out. Not a victory. A wipe-out. Rhetorically, they are simply not in the same league. And if the contrast tonight between McCain and Obama holds for the rest of the campaign, McCain is facing a defeat of historic proportions.
On Hillary's "I will not go gently into that good concession" speech, this:
She has lost, but she says she is not making any decisions tonight. She is still plugging her website, still saying she wants to hear from her supporters. It's surreal--most surreal because of her optimistic poise, which is either noble and brave or false and phony. This is a farewell, but she is pulling if off as if it is a beginning, of what exactly is not clear.
A terrific, but utterly ungracious speech. It showed the remarkable progress she's made as a candidate and public speaker--but what are the priorities here? Having a Democrat win in November...or aggrandizing Hillary Clinton?
And what to say about McCain's bizarre, lonely, and in Josh Marshall's words "frighteningly sad" speech...
Josh:
McCain is often very good when he speaks extemporaneously. Even better in 2000. But still good. He's also good in debates. But giving set piece speeches, let's face it, he's simply awful. He finds it impossible to pretend he's actually thinking what he's saying. But this whole speech is defensive in character (explaining why he's not running for Bush's third term), awkward and just feels old. The slogan seems to be: Am Not McSame!
The Internet's Matthew Yglesias:
One -- McCain is a very bad public speaker.
Two -- it's interesting that he's shifted his aesthetic from his old black and white "fascist" aesthetic to a new green and white Islamofascist aesthetic.
John McCain simply can not give a formal speech--especially one with a rhetorical conceit ("And that's not change you can believe in")--in a manner that is even vaguely convincing. Everything about him screams: I. Am. Reading. A. Speech. His weird ghostly grins and false chuckling whenever the rhetoric device came around were totally distracting... McCain's contention that Obama is "looking to the past" because he favors greater federal activism seems an ancient argument after 28 years of Reaganism.
From the re-branded green background to the silly attempt to capitalize on Democratic divisions to the Clintonian cooptation of an Obama meme - "a leader we can believe in" - McCain's opening gambit in the general election was, in my judgment, underwhelming. It wasn't the content as such.... To be blunt, McCain can be a pretty bad public speaker. He has a mild, relatively high-pitched voice and an uncomfortable way of smiling broadly and speaking softly as he makes tough attacks on his opponent.... And it is simply difficult stylistically for a man of McCain's age and experience to describe himself as a more credible change agent than this young insurgent. McCain has to try this change meme; but it doesn't thrill his base and it doesn't immediately connect to the middle. This was, in my judgment, an inauspicious start.
"
Oh, Go with the Green Background""It'll make you look like the cottage cheese in a lime jello salad" Always a good look for an older gentlemen.
The aesthetics of McCain's speech, just mercifully completed before a slightly energized crowd of literally dozens, was awesome in how dreadful it was. No matter what Harold Ford thinks, who was somehow thoroughly moved by lime-jello McCain.
No doubt there will be much more in the AM...
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