My Honest Thoughts

Leaving the Pepsi Center in the crush of humanity; making my way to the shuttle bus, and all the way back to Stapleton, I heard snippets of conversations like, “she nailed it,” “I cried the whole time,” “I knew she would be great….” So first of all let me say I am aware of being in a very small minority. Also, because I am SICK AND TIRED of grating pundits who seem to sit back and do their best to find fault with every move of the campaign and every decision about the convention, I am hesitant to say anything remotely critical about a historic moment which was so clearly loaded with meaning for so many. But (there was going to be a but) I was honestly disappointed.

I was extremely impressed with the speech that Hillary made on the Saturday after the last primary. I thought that was one of the finest pieces of rhetoric I have ever heard. Delicately and gracefully done. I was all about unity that afternoon. Tonight seemed like just a reprise of that moment and months later, I was hoping that she and her supporters could have come a little farther.

Truth be told, I just don’t get it. There is something that resonates deeply with her ardent supporters that just doesn’t ring in me. So I am baffled by the ferocity of the whole thing. And the similarity of her motivations to the motivations of everyone who took the stage tonight leaves me puzzled about why she and only she seems to fill the bill. To me, there was an edge of “I and only I understand these problems and will fight for these values” where Obama (and many others who I consider great leaders) always seems to hold up the vision as “our” vision and “our” values and “our” fight. That part of her style is off-putting to me. There is not some invisible club of hurt and downtrodden people whom no one but Hillary is capable of understanding and representing. And I don’t think she would have had to work so hard to pull people back together if she hadn’t worked so hard to drive the wedge. Sigh, but now I digress.

At any rate, I am sincerely glad that many people seemed to find joy and power in her words. I hope that they find peace and can eventually move on and find their sense of purpose again.

I need to go to bed, but I will check back in tomorrow morning on some of the other highlights of the night.

(Cross posted to bluetrueblog.com)