Democratic National Convention **live commentary thread**

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C-SPAN link. Might be better than the youtube one:

http://www.c-span.org/DNC/

I have it on in the background but I'm not paying much attention.

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Lilly Ledbetter actually did quite well. She basically hit Romney with a more subtle version of the classic Ann Richards "silver foot" line. Patrick was quite good too.

Julian Castro is putting everyone to sleep. They should have put Ledbetter and Patrick in prime-time instead.

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Okay, Castro started slow but he's getting better now. I guess I'm just a sucker for good attack lines.

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Castro is going pretty hard partisan.

Yeah, this speech is doing its re-electing Obama job but isn't really doing its Julian Castro for Governor 2014 job.

Praise The Lord!

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I dont get the Ryan-Romney thing? Is that a joke in liberal circles?

All of the ideological weight is on the bottom half of that ticket. Nobody really knows what Romney is. Thus the joke.

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Castro did a nice job. Nothing too amazing but he had some good lines.

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I honestly don't get why anyone wouldn't like Michelle Obama (other than the one pathetic, obvious reason). There's really nothing grating or even partisan about her.

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Guys, this speech isn't for us. (Obviously!)

I'm sure she's a doing a great job with the audience she's trying to reach.

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That line about opening the door to opportunity and not shutting it behind you was pretty good.

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Michelle's going a little overboard with the poverty and devastation.

The problem is the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality.  I think it will all come down to Friday.

I hate to say it, but the compelling personal stories just are not there.

That's a lie.

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Does anyone think either Michelle or Obama grew up in remotely deprived circumstances?

Considering they were born as black Americans in the 1960s, yes obviously.

With a father with a nice government job in Chicago. 

Uh huh, I'm sure that means she was livin' it up! Just like Mitt!

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Does anyone think either Michelle or Obama grew up in remotely deprived circumstances?

Considering they were born as black Americans in the 1960s, yes obviously.

With a father with a nice government job in Chicago. 

"Disabled city water plant employee"

LOL

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For Winfield:

David Gergen: "If they have another two nights like this, they might just break this race open!"

He also singled out Deval Patrick as the best speaker of the night.

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Chris Matthews apparently said Julian Castro's speech was one of the greatest he's ever heard.

Uh, it was decent. Calm down, Chris.

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Instagram crashed...maybe do to the DNC?

More likely due to an overload of Labor Day BBQ leftovers pictures.

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Michelle's going a little overboard with the poverty and devastation.

The problem is the disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality.  I think it will all come down to Friday.

What happens on Friday?

A job report that will fundamentally and permanently alter the state of the race, despite none of the previous job reports really affecting it at all.

GOP have to keep hope.........

No, the Democrats have to hope it is good, or the change for the worse.

If it is good, we'll never here you mention it again.

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The Clinton and Warren speeches were both very good.

However, I'm really pretty disgusted and disheartened by the whole voice vote thing. Why is it that everyone's alright with treating atheists like sh.it? There are a lot more atheists than Jews in this country.

They should have just left the platform alone. It wasn't that big of a deal. Now everyone involved with this has basically made a fool out of themselves.

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The Clinton and Warren speeches were both very good.

However, I'm really pretty disgusted and disheartened by the whole voice vote thing. Why is it that everyone's alright with treating atheists like sh.it? There are a lot more atheists than Jews in this country.

They should have just left the platform alone. It wasn't that big of a deal. Now everyone involved with this has basically made a fool out of themselves.

Including God in the platform is equivalent to treating atheists like sh**t?

"Political correctness FTW!"

Actually, having the sense not to bother including "god" in a friggin' political platform and then ramming it into it by way of a phony vote only to appease god-fearing people seems more like "political correctness FTW!" wouldn't you say?

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I was being sarcastic, implying that political correctness is a trash concept if Atheists are legitimately going to try and claim that including the word "God" is "hateful" to them. The fact is, the history and tradition of the United States is built on the concept that the country is one Nation under God.

You might not believe in God, but he plays a big part in the story of America. What is so terrible about respecting that tradition? It's not meant to be exclusive... it just represents the country's cultural history. Of course, political correctness would fly in the face of this tradition, asserting that "God"—one word—is somehow discriminatory. What a joke.

Genocide plays a big part in the story of America too. Maybe we should include a salute to that in the major party platforms.

Seriously though, we have something called separation of church and state in this country, or at least we're suppose to. There's absolutely no reason to include god in a party platform, and when people in the party vote down the notion of including god, that should be respected and it wasn't.

The reason it wasn't respected was that the Democratic Party wants to be politically correct and appeal to people like you (Christians/Jews/whatever). So don't give me a bunch of crap about how you or your side is above "political correctness". The inclusion of god in the platform is all about being politically correct.

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Maybe catering to the majority of Americans may seem like political correctness on a forum with such fringe views as this one, but that's not how political correctness works in the real world. Political correctness is about being over-sensitive to a minority. Reflecting the character of the vast majority is called "accuracy."

I guess I shouldn't expect anything less though, considering you're trying to equate genocide with God. Of course, "we're the hateful ones."

So if you're any kind of minority, screw you! Got it. I wonder if you'd feel the same way about this if a poll found a majority of the country identifying as atheists/agnostics/whatever.

And the genocide line was just a throw away. If I really wanted to connect belief in god to genocide, I could have added several historical examples to beef up the argument.

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Maybe catering to the majority of Americans may seem like political correctness on a forum with such fringe views as this one, but that's not how political correctness works in the real world. Political correctness is about being over-sensitive to a minority. Reflecting the character of the vast majority is called "accuracy."

I guess I shouldn't expect anything less though, considering you're trying to equate genocide with God. Of course, "we're the hateful ones."

So if you're any kind of minority, screw you! Got it. I wonder if you'd feel the same way about this if a poll found a majority of the country identifying as atheists/agnostics/whatever.

And the genocide line was just a throw away. If I really wanted to connect belief in god to genocide, I could have added several historical examples to beef up the argument.

If you were actually reading my posts, you would see that "screw you" is the last thing on my mind. In what way does including a nod to God—who, believe in him or not, plays a big role in America—say "screw you" to minorities? In what way is one word hateful? In what way would the DNC somehow be in the wrong for reflecting the views of alomst 77% of Americans?

I never said the word itself was "hateful", the main point is that it has literally no reason to be included in a political platform since has nothing to do with governing this country. It's only being included, in a throughly anti-democratic way since it never got the 2/3 vote it was supposed to get, to kowtow to people who believe in god (at the expense of people who don't). I think that's wrong and you don't. Clearly, we don't and won't see eye to eye on this. Ah well.

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You may be proud, but it's really all about electoral politics. Just keep that in mind.

I'm also keeping in mind that because of it, we're not receiving the short end of the stick anymore. Or at least, not the shortest.

Yep. I guess that's reserved atheists now.

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Ugh, The Foo Fighters are on now. They should have got The National instead.

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I wonder if there's any chance of Charlie Crist coming out of the closet tonight, because that's about the only reason I can think of to bother watching that speech...

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Gabby!

I only caught the end of that, did she say anything or did they just walk her out there?