Top 5 Speeches from Tuesday Night

So, what else happened last night?

Here are my awards for the top five speeches (my comments already rendered on the Hillary speech, I took her out of the running since hers was arguably in a different plane than the rest of the speeches last night):

Number 5: Dennis Kucinich “Wake Up America:” the first really rambunctious speech of the day. A much needed “wake up” for the delegates, and vintage Kucinich. “Wake up America!” he told us over and over. And the cheers grew every time. “Contractors want war…the drug companies have taken over the drug pricing…etc”

"They can tap our phones, but they can’t tap our creative spirit, they can open our mail, but they can’t open up economic opportunities."

Then he said – we don’t need to go from right to left, we need to go from down to UP! “Up with workers, up with wages! Up with healthcare for all, Up with education for all!”

Great rhetoric! Well-delivered! Bravo, Dennis.

Number 4: Ed Rendell

This was the energy speech of the night. First he laid out the terrible record of Bush and McCain on the environment:

And if you look past the speeches to his record, it’s clear: John McCain has
never believed in renewable energy and he won’t make it part of America’s
future. For all his talk, here’s the truth: John McCain voted against
establishing a national renewable energy standard. He voted against tax
incentives for renewable energy companies. And for all his talk of drilling, he
refused to endorse a bipartisan effort to expand domestic oil production because
that bipartisan proposal would end tax breaks for big oil.

It’s
clear: the only thing green in John McCain’s energy plan is the billions of
dollars he’s promising in tax cuts for oil companies. And the only thing he’ll
recycle is the same failed Bush approach to energy policy. We can’t afford more
of the same. We need a strategy that puts America on a path to end the age of
oil once and for all.

Then he goes on to describe Obama’s energy plan, drawing a sharp distinction between Obama’s plan and the Bush/McCain record:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to producing enough homegrown fuel to
replace every drop of the oil we import from the Middle East and Venezuela in
just 10 years. An Obama administration will invest $4 billion to keep America in
the car-making business and give you a tax cut so you can buy a fuel-efficient
car or truck. And it will commit to getting 1 million 150-mile-per-gallon cars
on our roads within six years, and make sure they are built right here in
America.

It will require that within four years, at least 10
percent of our nation’s electricity comes from alternative energy, and by 2025
we hit 25 percent. It will move immediately to make the renewable energy tax
credit permanent and double the amount of energy that comes from renewable
sources over the next four years.

It will invest $150 billion over
the next decade to grow our energy supply and put 5 million Americans to work
building solar and wind farms, clean coal gasification and geothermal plants,
the kind of jobs that can’t be outsourced to India or China. It will bring
everyone to the table-business, government and the American people-to reduce our
demand for electricity 15 percent by the end of next decade. That’s the kind of
change we need.

Of course he had more jokes and more stories but bottom line – here’s the specifics that the pundits keep clamoring for. Obama/Biden understand the full impact of the energy situation on our national security and they have a plan to address the crisis. Bush/McCain do not understand and will not address this critical issue.

Number 3: Deval Patrick

I thought this was a dynamite speech. I am told that the arrival of Bill Clinton interrupted the experience for the delegates on the floor, so here was one example of the nosebleed seats being an advantage.

He started by telling his own personal story of growing up in poverty in Chicago – about how he and his mother and sister shared a room and set of bunkbeds. They rotated through on a nightly basis – top bunk, bottom bunk, floor – so that every third night, one of them slept on the floor. And he contrasted his own childhood experience with that of his own daughter who has her own room in a beautiful house in a safe neighborhood:

One generation and the circumstances of my life and family were profoundly
transformed. And though that story is still not told as often as we’d like, it’s
told more often in this country than any other place on earth. That is the
American story. It is who we are. It is also what we stand for as
Democrats: the simple notion that through hard work, tenacity, preparation and
faith each of us has a chance at the American story.

He went on to say that the American dream is in jeopardy these days, but if we work together, we can restore the promise of our beloved country. He describes it as improving our “vision:”

When I was growing up on the South Side of Chicago in the ‘50s and ‘60s,
everything was broken. Playgrounds, schools, families and lives—all broken. But
we had a community. Those were days when every child was under the jurisdiction
of every single adult on the block. So if you messed up in front of Ms. Jones’
stoop, she would straighten you out as if you were hers and then call home, so
you would get it twice. What those adults were trying to get across to us was
that they had a stake in us. They wanted us to understand that membership in a
community is seeing the stake that each of us has in our neighbor’s dreams and
struggles, as well as our own.
Barack Obama has challenged us to rebuild our
national community. To focus not on the things that tear us apart, but on those
that bring us together; not on the right or the left, but right and wrong; not
on yesterday, but tomorrow. These are the possibilities Barack Obama asks us to
reach for. This is the kind of leadership he offers to bring to the
presidency—not because government can solve every problem in everybody’s life;
but because “government,” as Barney Frank likes to say, is simply the name we
give to the things we choose to do together.

Great, great, great.

Number 2: Brian Schweitzer

This was also an energy speech, but in this one, the delivery was more important than the content. On a night when we were running behind instead of ahead of schedule, there was very little time for the band to play between speeches. The crowd was not as loose, and many times it was a bit hard to hear. So here comes Governor Schweitzer totally SELLING IT. He was great. You just have to watch the video if you missed it last night.

Here was the laugh line from the speech:

Even leaders in the oil industry know that Senator McCain has it wrong. We
simply can’t drill our way to energy independence, even if you drilled in
all of John McCain’s backyards, including the ones he can’t even
remember.

Good times.

And the Number 1 Speech of last night: The US Senate Women

I give the honors for “best speech of the night” to the platoon of eight Democratic Women Senators. They were amazing! Every single one of them absolutely nailed it. They each had a short, pithy theme focusing on domestic policy and they drove it home. After hit or miss speeches from the men all night, it was so fun to see each and every one of the women absolutely sparkle.

The link gives their remarks individually, but they were presented as a package deal – and what a dynamite package they were.

For all the depressed Hillary supporters who think she was the one and only chance to put a woman in the White House, I got eight people who said strongly last night, “Don’t you fret – we got this one.”

Bravo to:

The Honorable Barbara Mikulski
US Senator, Maryland
The Honorable Barbara Boxer
US Senator, California
The Honorable Mary Landrieu
US Senator, Louisiana
The Honorable Blanche Lambert Lincoln
US Senator, Arkansas
The Honorable Debbie Stabenow
US Senator, Michigan
The Honorable Maria Cantwell
US Senator, Washington
The Honorable Claire McCaskill
US Senator, Missouri
The Honorable Amy Klobuchar
US Senator, Minnesota

So there you have it! I am VERY late to shower and get down to the Pepsi Center to see this roll call vote happen. Expect twitter updates all night long.

(Cross Posted to trueblueblog.com)