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A View from Afar
Having chosen to watch the speeches and presentations on the convention floor on C-SPAN, rather than MSNBC or CNN (is Fox even covering it?), I'm not getting the "analyses" and "punditry," but just the unvarnished, unfiltered show. And having watched it for one and a half nights so far, I have come to one conclusion.
It is excrutiatingly boring.
There are exceptions. Tonight, for instance, David Paterson was very good. Dennis Kucinich was terrific. Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is someone to watch; look for her to run for President some day. There was a woman from North Carolina named Gloria Craven, who talked about the textile mill closing in her town, and people with no education and no future being laid off, losing their pensions and being unable to afford health care.
There were two Republicans -- Jim Leach, a former Congressman from Iowa, and Jim Whitaker, the current Mayor of Fairbanks, Alaska. They are so much better than Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman.
As I write this, Bob Casey has the crowd chanting "four more months." That's pretty good.
But for the most part, the speakers are easy to ignore -- easier to ignore than to listen to. For the past 1 1/2 hours we've been in "prime time," but the parade of speakers is no better than it was before prime time started.
Here's hoping it gets better.
UPDATE: Mark Warner is no Mario Cuomo, much less a Barack Obama.
The Convention at the Tank
We are watching the convention at one of the true democratic oasises in this city, The Tank! The Tank is a roving place of free space and expression. This month it is at 87 Lafayette St., off of Canal St, on the ground floor of the DCTV building (the Downtown Community Television Center) The good folks who run the Tank and the group Drinking Liberally are providing big screen tv coverage of both the democratic and republican conventions. No cover, no minimum, just come in off the street and take in the event with some cool people and partake of some informed conversation. I can think of some high end bars with expensive drinks uptown where you could watch the convention, but no place represents the spirit of this week better than the Tank. The Tank isn't anything fancy, it is just a free space in a city that has fewer and fewer free spaces by the day. Come watch the convention here every day this week, and hey they have Brooklyn Lagers here for four bucks and if you want to bring in food go ahead. Beat that.