The Convention via YouTube

[Prophet 451]

From here in Britain, it's impossible to watch the convention in full so we're stuck with watching parts on YouTube and discussing it on the BBC (dominated by far-right wingers) so my reflections are somewhat fragmented.

The speeches that stick in my mind are (in no particular order):
Hillary - I'm probably going to be flamed here but I've never thought Hillary was an especially wonderful public speaker. The content was excellent but, on a personal level, I didn't care for the delivery. Obviously, I'm in the minority though and that's fine.

Kucinich - Blew the doors off the place. Obviously having energy to burn, Kooch bounced around like (as the Rude Pundit put it) "the most coherant meth addict in history". His passion overwhelmed the imperfect delivery and his almost preacher-esque fire woke everyone up.

Bill Clinton - Still the master of making a prepared political speech sound like a kitchen table chat.

Good Lord, Chelsea's grown into a fine looking woman!

Michelle Obama - Was a lot more restrained than I was expecting. I was expecting a fire-and-brimstone barn-burner but she delivered a reflective speech with dignity and compassion. Also, I want to clone their kids, Sasha completely upstaged both her parents.

Joe Biden - Gives good speech. He's a guy who has a talent for wry humour and a folksy delivery. The recollections of his mother were a little schmaltzy but he absolutely HAMMERED McCain in the second half of his speech.

Obama - Well, what can one say? Obama is easily the best public speaker I've seen in my lifetime (and I've seen some doozys, Tony Benn on a roll is not easy to forget). OK, his speech was short on specifics but we already knew his positions. It did exactly what it needed to do.

[Bob Dobbs]

1. Spot on analysis.

It is good to get a perspective from outside the American bubble.

[SoCalDem]

2. Couldn't you have watched it live on cspan, online?

I peeked at the Guardian & BBCs take.. very positive:)

[Prophet 451]

3. cspan have a website?

I'll be honest, that never occured to me.

The Beeb's coverage was mostly positive (discount the "Have Your Say" pages, they're populated by the far-right). The Indie's was mostly good, criticising the Dems only for being not progressive enough.

[SoCalDem]

4. Yes.. and they are replaying it..and will be for a while

www.cspan.org


http://www.cspan.org/

[bananas]

5. It was also streaming live from the official convention website

and they have it all archived so you can still watch it from there,
although you have to install a plug-in: www.demconvention.com