Contrasting Candidates, Contrasting Conventions

The conventions are quickly becoming old news. But I wanted to mention how different Denver and St. Paul were, in terms of execution and competence.

The Dem convention came in with a lot of questions. Mostly about whether the party could come together, re: the Hillary and Obama camps. But every day, it seemed the convention kind of raised the bar. Hillary's speech went great. Bill, who the pundits seem to think would blow a gasket or something, also got rave reviews. And Obama's stadium speech, which was increasingly seen as risky by the media, also was a big success. Even the silly "Greek Temple" issue that critics whipped up about the speech's background was defused once you saw the stage itself; there was nothing unusual about it at all. In sum, the convention went pretty much like clockwork.

Compare it to the Republican convention. The hurricane, of course, was something the the R planners couldn't have predicted and couldn't control. But that problem faded quickly. Hurricane aside, the week got off to a chaotic beginning, as a total unknown was announced as VP just prior to the convention. Rudy Giuliani's speech went long, causing the convention to cancel the Palin introductory video (it was played the next night). There was the strange video background for McCain's speech. I have to say, I was absolutely astounded to see a lime green background behind McCain early in the speech, since he had been so widly ridiculed for the green screen background of an earlier speech. And the wider shot was of what appeared to be a mansion -- again, not a good image for McCain, since the "7 Houses" issue came up.

But it wasn't a mansion, turns out. It was Walter Reed Middle School in Los Angeles. Many have speculated that the McCain camp intended to put Walter Reed military hospital in the background, which would have been fitting to some degree, given McCain's past. No one knows exactly what was going on (McCain's camp, in the best Bush tradition, is refusing comment), but the bottom line is that for a huge section of thespeech, what TV viewers mostly saw was a weird green background, which was later replaced by an equally eye-damaging blue background.

That's not to say there weren't good moments to the convention. Palin's speech was a huge success. McCain had some good moments toward the end of his speech. Thompson got his baritone on.

But overall, the R convention was more chaotic, more glitchy, less disciplined. It's a small thing, I suppose. But both conventions can be seen as reflections of the management styles and basic competence of the candidates. Take your pick.