My latest: the DNC in ten points

NEW YORK – The 2024 Democratic National Convention – the DNC – is over.

The red, white and blue balloons have dropped. The speeches have been spoken. The 4,700 Democrat delegates are heading home, or home already.

So what was accomplished? What wasn’t? What is still to be done?

Here’s ten observations from an (admittedly) biased perspective – a Canuck who has volunteered for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and (now) Kamala Harris.

1. It ain’t over. One thread ran through the speeches of Harris, Barack Obama and even Oprah Winfrey: independents. Over and over, the Democratic luminaries stressed the critical importance of that middle swath of American voters – the ones Harris needs to win. The media polls notwithstanding, the earnest appeals for independent support strongly suggest that the Democrats haven’t won the election, yet.

2. Harris is a good speaker. But she ain’t Barack Obama, or even Michelle Obama.  Her Thursday night address was only 38 minutes long – the twelfth-shortest in modern history. Content-wise, it was a pretty safe speech, with the traditional Democratic Party themes. But it broke no new ground. Harris isn’t a bad speaker – but nor is she Winston Churchill. Hope she’s better in the debate.

3. The DNC had one theme, however, that wasn’t traditional – it was positively radical, for them: freedom. For a generation, conservatives have made “freedom” their own: freedom to buy lots of guns, freedom to drive big cars, the freedom to say and do what you want. They owned it. The Dems have now flipped the script. Because Donald Trump is an aspiring autocrat, the Democrats are preaching a different kind of freedom – freedom of reproductive choice, freedom to love who you want to love, freedom to vote how you want to vote (and have it respected). It’s freedom with a twist.

4. Notice something missing? Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama needed to address his skin color – or in 2016, when Hillary Clinton needed to address her gender – Kamala Harris did not say anything, not a word, about hers. Polls have shown that Americans don’t really consider those to be a big deal, so Harris smartly decided to follow their lead. Her gender and her racial identity make her truly extraordinary, but – for now, she’s keeping all of that on the down low. Voters don’t want those things to be the center of her campaign, and she agrees.

5. Tim Walz was an inspired pick.  With a Left Coast woman of color at the top of the ticket, the Democrats had no choice: they had to find a regular white guy from the middle of America. They needed the Doug Fordiest Ralph Klein of all Jean Chretiens, and that’s exactly what they got. Walz is remarkably unremarkable and it works. Big time.

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