All Times Eastern
11:52
I wrote on Tuesday,
As much as Harris can, she should play down the significance of her election as a woman, or a woman of color. Her friends already know those things and some of the people she’s trying to persuade don’t like them.
She should say what Muhammad Ali said when asked by a bunch of Harvard students, for a poem: “Me, we.”
Not just “we” the audience/public, but “we,” the seemingly totally united front of Democratic leaders around her at this moment.
Done and done. Good night.
11:25
On Fox, Trump sounds like a crank caller; I keep waiting for the anchors to tell him thanks for calling but they need to go to a break.
11:20
Oh hey, Fox News has Trump on the phone! Describes Harris’s speech as “a lot of complaining.” (Why can’t we get this man a little studio at Mar-a-Lago.” [Those hyphens do not endorse this message.]) Calls her a “Marxist.” Says she won’t allow any fracking in Pennsylvania. I can’t keep up, as it is late and I am drunk.
11:16
Fox News is basically fawning over this. And by that I mean stumbling like a deer who has not yet learned to walk.
11:12
“Let’s write the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”
Yes. Lets.
11:07
She looks presidential and sounds better than that.
11:03
This border-security bill pledge seems so perfectly obvious. And it was perfectly conceived and executed. Take your “policy details,” and shove them up your ass.
11:00
“We trust women.” Whether or not it’s particularly true of me and my tribe, we do feel it is. So that’s one real galvanizing line.
10:55
This is an absolutely solid, standard, modern political speech—well-written and well-delivered. Sounds like policy. I think that’s what we were looking for here. Hot ground ball to third, Harris picks it up smoothly and fires over to first, for the out.
10:51
The prosecutor is out, on Trump.
10:50
“The future is always worth fighting for.” A banal sentence over lunch, but a perfect one in a speech. (Speeches have their own emotional properties.)
10:48
“I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations.” And about four other fine sentences in a row.
10:46
Hey, here’s a good sentence: “On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.”
10:43
Let’s keep doing that, by the way, and call her “Harris.” Like we did with “Clinton” when he was Bill, but not Clinton when she was “Hillary.” Plus, Harris easy for obtuse assholes to pronounce.
10:41
Harris’s mother: “Never complain about injustice, but do something about it.” (“And never do anything half-assed.”)
10:40
“None of them family by blood, and all of them family by love.”
10:37
“I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys.”
10:35
How can you not just smile at this relationship between this many people, and this one?
10:34
Goddamn, this is very exciting, isn’t it?
10:30
Harris intro video: Great. “Gotta kick that fuckin’ door down.” (Sorry Dad, things have gotten out of hand here on earth. This is actually the far less vulgar candidate talking.)
10:18
The genuine and also clearly considered enthusiasm of (Harris step-daughter) Ella Emhoff is worth a hell of a lot. I love that kid from here and if she loves Harris, that’s pretty much good enough for me.
10:12
Former Republican House Member Adam Kissinger. Some good language on Trump: “Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim.” As for Harris: “Whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamental matters of principle, of decency and of fidelity to this nation.” To fellow Republications: “If you still pledge allegiance to those principals, I suspect you belong here too.”
10:09
So I sez to my sis-in-law, I sez, “Good Q. All the speechwriters and DC folks are out there. And it’s a good reminder of how late it is out there! And people are used to calibrating off ET. (But I like your righteousness.)” Sez she, “Be the change bro.”
10:02
Gretchen Whitmer, on being 29, raising her kid and taking care of her dying mother: “It was hard, but not extraordinary. It was life.” I love the point she’s making about Trump not having been in a grocery store and not being ready for a crisis, but calling Kamala Harris “a total badass” is fucking pandering.
10:00
Sister-in-law: “I am, perhaps irrationally, annoyed that you post in eastern time. Especially when the convention is in central. Why bro why.” Oh never mind, here comes Big Gretch.
9:51
Leon Panetta means about the same to most of these people as William H. Seward. He’s not moving the ball forward—he’s holding Harris up!
9:47
Mark Kelly is rock solid but he emotes like … an astronaut.
9:35
A Southern writer friend emails:
That’s my only problem with any of these guys: Who’s watching? It’s a 70 million-member choir they’re preaching to. I don’t think one mind is being changed by all this … though I love the zeal and energy and the optimism it’s giving me, well-founded or not.
There’s a sound barrier between red and blue. When Kamala speaks tonight, Bubba in Bama is coming home from scattering grass seed under his deer stand, getting ready for buck season. Becky in Boise has her hands full with her 18 Mormon babies. No matter how fancy the words in the DNC and how dazzling the show, it just doesn’t reach Bubba and Becky.
For my money, D, even with Fox TV power, the most influential media in conservative America is talk radio. Rush Limbaugh would have been a genius no matter his political persuasion, but the foundation of hate and harm he allowed non-news people to justify to themselves has yet to be undone. Talk radio is what Bubba and Becky eat for breakfast. There’s not another credible voice in their lives.
All I can do is repeat what I heard Michael Moore say once. Something like: Yes, I’m preaching to the choir. The choir needs to be preached to, too. It’s been good to be in this choir this week. It’s made me ready to do more singing. How about you?
9:15
How am I supposed to be irascible/curmudgeonly in the face of all this goddamn fucking earnestness? Building myself a Bloody Mary and a beer back.
8:54
A communication consultant friend emails: “Question: How much do you drink across the evening? As I feel you get a little more irascible/curmudgeonly as the evening(s) wear on. However much it is, keep it up.”
Once again: Ask not.
8:49
I’m acquainted with the person who’s reported to be leading the Harris writing team tonight. I’m not going to tell you any more than this: The person is still young, yet has great American rhetoric embedded in his bones going back to the middle of the last century. So this one has a chance to be deep.
8:45
Wait, did Collin Allred just do the “me-we” thing? On Tuesday, I wrote that Harris “should say what Muhammad Ali said when asked by a bunch of Harvard students, for a poem: ‘Me, we.'” Champ, I’m not sure which one of us should sue for plagiarism. We’ll talk.
6:00 p.m.
After Tuesday night at the DNC, star speechwriter Felicity Barber wrote about the Obama speeches (Michelle’s in particular) as well as tomorrow’s huge one of a different ilk, from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell:
So, what can speechwriters take from this late summer rush of influential speeches?
Speechwriting is here to stay.
ChatGPT could not have written what Michelle Obama said last night, and there’s no way the Fed is using AI to write what Powell will say on Friday.
So much of the conversation around our profession over the past decade has been about whether it can survive the short attention spans of the digital age and the advent of AI. But if last night proved anything, it’s that speechwriting isn’t going anywhere. Our profession has been around for thousands of years, and I am confident we’ll be good for a thousand more.
That would be more than enough for me.
***
Last night wasn’t good.
Too many speakers, few of them good enough to hold a candle to the speakers of the previous nights. Seemed like a night to put obligatory bullshit, starting with Bill Clinton. Well fine, but keep that obligatory bullshit on time.
Could anybody be more self-indulgent than Bill Clinton? He reportedly rewrote his entire speech longhand on a legal pad Monday … and then went off script over and over, so his smug and shambling speech ran way long.
Did the mansplainer-in-chief not realize he was pushing the main event deep into the night and relegating the only important speaker of the night, Tim Walz, to mop-up duty?
Did he think some sleepy-ass undecided voters were gonna be staying up until almost midnight to hear a political speech?
Or did he think they were going to make up the time by bumping young Amanda Gorman—whose poem, admittedly, was about the same level as, “Don’t count the lies, count the I’s’”—to make more room for his weary old act?
Or was it just the narcissist’s magical thinking that believes when he speaks, time stands still?
Pardon my anger; such schedule-wrecking gasbags are why this conference organizer has a black sweat stain on his portfolio.
And if I know anything about conference organizers, tonight is going to be air tight.
Let’s hope it’s rousing, as well.
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