Official Democratic National Convention Thread

Re: the above note that this will be bullshit left and right, this is exactly the type of thing I'm going to try and delete if I can to keep this thread at least sort of on the rails. If you think someone is a corrupt sham contributing to the downfall of America and ruining your freedom or whatever, please make specific criticisms. Particularly in the case of Obama or Romney or their running mates. Because this is basically spam.

There's lots of good reasons to criticize any politician or party, so you should have no shortage of material.

Worth looking at: apparently, Sunlight Live is going to provide a separate live stream, which will include a fact-checking service. I have no idea how this fact-check system works, but I'm going to check it out and see.

http://www.sunlightlive.com/

I didn't catch many outright factual misstatements in Romney's speech other than the "700 billion from Medicare" bullshit that has been promulgated repeatedly. But elsewhere in the convention, I'm sure you're right. I watched Ryan's speech and that one was pretty bald-faced at times. The Janesville plant thing was perhaps the most obvious.

I'm willing to bet there will be a lot of fudging of the truth and misleading rhetoric this week, as well, but for the most part it will likely be vague assertions that are actually more nuanced and arguable than the speaker lets on, i.e. "Obama saved General Motors", "Obama turned around a failing economy", stuff like that. Romney did a lot of this too. You rarely hear things in these speeches that are inarguably and totally wrong.

Pat Quinn, Governor of Illinois, is currently giving a speech in response to the RNC basically accusing the Republican party of lying throughout that convention.

I'm watching on http://www.sunlightlive.com/ - it's pretty good, unlaggy, but the screen size is small (though I think you can maximize it).

You can also watch at the link in the OP, or CSPAN is saying it's running a totally commentary-free live stream at http://www.c-span.org/DNC/

Spending all this time on abortion issues is puzzling. It's pretty fearmongering. "Don't assume you know what Mitt Romney will do" message is pretty cheesy stuff. Not a fan at all. But whatever, after the video break is Tammy Duckworth, then Lincoln Chafee.

Strickland: "If Mitt was Santa Claus, he would fire the raindeer and outsource the elves". To be fair, he then had a much better progression about Mitt's money needing a passport because he keeps it on Beaches in the carribean and slopes in Switzerland.

This is a damned good speech, though obviously pretty grandstanding.

On Mitt's statements about Obama and Welfare to work - "He's lying."

States that Romney/Ryan tax plan would have slashed Mitt's tax rate to less than 1%.

"Obama is betting on the American worker - Romney is betting on a Bermuda shell corporation".

Focus of a lot of the speakers, including Strickland, is on mobilizing votes - urging people to get out to the polls.

Democrats have referenced, about 5 times so far by my count, Romney saying "Let Detroit go Bankrupt". Here is Mitt's article on this - judge for yourself: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=2

Kal Penn now on stage - I guess the DNC's version of inviting an actor... oh dear. He just accepted the nomination for President.

Fact checker just posted - D. Patrick states that Romney left Mass. with an unemployment rate of 47th best in the country. It is now 12th.

Also, damn, can this dude ever deliver a speech.

Interesting. Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley is hammering on the line "Forward, Not Back", which is the motto, so to speak, of the Convention. The idea here is that to cast the RNC's somewhat nostalgic focus on an idyllic America that once was (presumably before Obama got into power) and can be again, the Democrats are saying that their vision is about taking America backwards. Pretty clever.

Other thing I'm noticing - Paul Ryan stated that the Obama campaign would not run on his accomplishments or his record, presumably on the view that if he ran on his record it would lead to a Romney win. However, more than a couple speeches have focussed specifically on what Obama has done while in office and attempted to cast his 4 years thus far as a success story for the country. I guess Ryan was wrong about their strategy. Is it working? I think it worked in Kal Penn's speech. Not so sure about Sebelius's.

Here are my picks for the three best speeches from earlier in the night on Monday.

1. Massachussetts Governor Deval Patrick

2. Actor and former White House staffer Kal Penn

3. Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland