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babylonsister

(170,963 posts)
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 07:26 PM Sep 2012

This is How Dems Do It

This is How Dems Do It
Harold Meyerson

September 7, 2012

Obama defines the election as a choice between social Darwinism and citizenship.

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama and his family and Vice President Joe Biden and his family celebrate their nominations as the confetti falls at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.


The third and final night of this week’s Democratic Convention may have lacked the fireworks we saw on the first two. Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton were eloquent in different ways, and weren’t matched by Barack Obama or Joe Biden on the convention’s closing night. That’s not to say that the closing night wasn’t effective, however. By focusing above all on two of Obama’s decisions—to save General Motors and Chrysler and to send in the Seals to take out Osama bin Laden—Obama and Biden emphasized the two most politically potent contrasts, especially on the latter point, they could draw with Mitt Romney and used those contrasts to make their most telling attacks on Romney yet.

They also did more than that: They set up the election as a choice between a nation run on market principles and a nation subject to the dictates of fairness and inclusivity. Combine Obama and Biden’s speeches with Clinton’s the night before, and the party almost arrived at a governing credo: fairness and inclusiveness are not only right in themselves, they produce a more prosperous nation than a nation run on the narrow calculus that has shaped Bain Capital’s—and much of corporate America’s—priorities.

“Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive” is a pretty good campaign slogan, not just because it touts Obama’s most obvious successes but also because it enables Democrats to talk about the cramped, market-driven worldview of Mitt Romney, the Republican Party and (though Democrats pursue this delicately) American business. Here’s Biden contrasting Romney’s response to Detroit’s crisis to Obama’s:

When I look back on the president's decision, I think of another son of an automobile man — Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney grew up in Detroit....His dad ran an entire automobile company, American Motors. In spite of that, he was willing to let Detroit go bankrupt. I don’t think he's a bad guy. I’m sure he grew up loving cars as much as I did. I don’t think he understood that saving the automobile worker — saving the industry — what it meant to all of America. I think he saw it the Bain way. I think he saw it in terms of balance sheets and write-offs. Folks, the Bain way may bring your firm the highest profits. But it’s not the way to lead our country from the highest office.

When things hung in the balance, the president understood this was about a lot more than the automobile industry. This was about restoring America’s pride. He understood in his gut what it would mean to leave a million people without hope or work if he didn’t act
.


Biden’s was precisely the kind of contrast that convention speakers returned to repeatedly. They did it most obviously when laid-off workers from businesses Bain had taken over told their stories on Wednesday night. They did it subtly when Michelle Obama evoked the image of her husband poring over letters from ordinary Americans every night, something that I think many Americans have trouble envisioning Romney doing even as they know he methodically pores over the numbers behind his decisions to keep a plant open or close it down.

more...

http://prospect.org/article/how-dems-do-it

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This is How Dems Do It (Original Post) babylonsister Sep 2012 OP
Bookmarking to read the rest when I get home. I love that shot of the arena. Tarheel_Dem Sep 2012 #1
Great article. great white snark Sep 2012 #2
Wow..thanks babylonsistah! I still Cha Sep 2012 #3

Cha

(295,926 posts)
3. Wow..thanks babylonsistah! I still
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 07:48 PM
Sep 2012

haven't heard VP Biden's or Pres Obama's speeches yet. This is an Awesome Preview!

Respectful but right to mitt's freaking jugular.. metaphorically speaking!

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