A heaping of AWESOME.
Before we get to Wednesday, let's take a look at the impact Tuesday night had in the media world.
First of all, Michelle Obama kicked Ann Romney's ass in the ratings game:
The Nielsen Co. said about 26.2 million people watched the opening night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C., where the first lady was the featured speaker.
Last week, Nielsen said 22.3 million watched the first night of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., where potential first lady Ann Romney talked about her husband, Mitt.
More people watched the DNC convention on network TV (non-political junkies) this Tuesday than last:
DNC
ABC: 3,236,553
CBS: 3,268,520
NBC: 5,021,551
Total network: 11,526,624
RNC
ABC: 2,862,656
CBS: 3,118,927
NBC: 4,770,050
Total network: 10,751,633
There was no Democratic viewership drop-off from 2008. Republicans, however, saw a 30 percent decline from their first-day numbers in 2008.
The Democratic convention also kicked the RNC's ass on Twitter.
Clinton’s speech Wednesday night in Charlotte peaked at 22,087 tweets per minute, while Michelle Obama peaked at 28,003 TPM on Tuesday, according to Twitter. Clinton did do better on Twitter than Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who reached just 14,289 TPM last week at the Republican National Convention.
Chris Christie? He's an afterthought, averaging 6,079.
So Democrats clearly won Day One, and it definitely was a rocking day. So how did Day Two go? I'll get to that below the fold.
Things got off to a rocky start, to put it mildly. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh spent Tuesday whining about the removal of the word "god" and lack of language calling for establishing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in the Democratic platform. A strong and confident Democratic Party would laugh off those petty criticisms—AIPAC had vetted the Israel language and had been satisfied with it, because apparently lobbyists write the party platform. And as for god, the U.S. Constitution omits god and somehow we survived as a nation.
But apparently, Pres. Barack Obama didn't want those things to be a "distraction," so he escalated what was a minor conservative shitstorm into real news: Convention Chair Antonio Villaraigosa proposed a resolution amending the party platform to include the word "god" and the Jerusalem thing in the platform. About half the delegates, unhappy at Democrats caving yet again to petty conservative whining, voted no. Three times, Villaraigosa called a voice vote, and each time the yeas and neas were evenly divided.
Problem was, he needed a two-thirds vote to pass the amendment, and he didn't have it. So he pretended the "yays" carried it, and was showered with boos from pissed-off delegates. Fox News and the conservative noise machine now pretends that the delegates were booing god and Jerusalem, when in fact the delegates were pissed at yet another example of over-reactive Democratic weenie-ism.
Adding that language into the platform was never going to stop conservative attacks on those issues. The retort is obvious: "They only added the words back when they were called on it! Their true feelings have already been exposed!" But now, Fox News and company have video of Democrats "booing god" to buttress their bullshit attacks.
But now, Obama won't be attacked on Israel or religion, right? Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh well, baby steps. This has been a far more muscularly Democratic convention than any I can remember, so in the bigger picture, this setback was minor.
The rest of the day, before prime time, was actually an exercise in boring. Emanuel Cleaver brought down the house. If you missed it, watch it:
They should've just let him speak for three hours until prime-time hit, but oh, well. There were the ex-Bain workers, the good-guy corporate CEOs (CarMax and Costco), Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards, but the energy was palpably down from Tuesday. It didn't help that Barney Frank's spot was skipped. What was
that about? (He was moved to tonight.) And when Sandra Fluke's slot passed and she was nowhere to be found, people began to get worried.
But there was no reason to worry about Fluke. She was actually moved to a higher-profile spot in prime time. And she was spectacular, driving conservatives insane. As Amanda Marcotte speculated:
After decades of playing along with conservatives who dress up their hostility to female sexuality as nothing more than an interest in "life," Democrats have finally realized that baiting the anti-choice right into showing its misogynist, sex-phobic side may just be a winning strategy.
It worked.
Bill Clinton just impregnated Sandra Fluke backstage...
— @AnnCoulter via web
Sandra Fluke's speech was the most hateful, strident, angry speech I've ever heard at a political convention. Ever.
— @ToddKincannon via TweetDeck
You get the idea. Conservatives were apoplectic. They just lost their shit. And it was glorious.
Then Elizabeth Warren hit the stage. Gotta say, I hadn't been as nervous for a speaker since Howard Dean. While Howard has always been something of an awkward speaker, Warren is not—my fears were quickly calmed as she rocked the convention, showing the rest of America why we love her so much around here. Of course, she brought out the racist in every conservative tweeter:
#DNC2012 Elizabeth Warren might win if she puts on her war paint!
— @DickMorrisTweet via web
And teepees and casinos and tomahawks! MT @DebErupts: Elizabeth Warren: Corporations are NOT people, people have hearts, they have kids...
— @ToddKincannon via TweetDeck
But then, she spoke, and even Dick Morris saw starbursts:
#DNC2012 one of the all time best speakers. Really really good. She'll probably win in Mass.
— @DickMorrisTweet via web
Now, given that Dick Morris is wrong about everything, I preferred it when he was simply being a racist prick.
Not only did Warren rock it, but she got the honor of introducing Bill Clinton, and there's little more to say about his speech than has already been said. He's my pick for Secretary of Department of Explaining Shit because no one does it like him. No one!
Of course, the media set about looking for signs of division. Because they're morons.
And that was that. What began unfortunately with the platform fiasco and evolved into uneventful and boring, ended as one of the most powerful nights of political theater anyone could've watched. Electrifying.
Today we close it out with President Obama, himself. Can't wait.