Teddy and Michelle in Denver, Hillary everywhere

Yesterday, Monday 25, 2008, was the first day of the Democratic Convention, taking place this year in Denver, Colorado.

Originally, the party conventions were meetings in which the delegates of each party casted their vote to choose their nominee to run for president.
Today, in the age of fast communication and technology, we know, of course who the nominees are, even though they are still referred in the media as "presumptive nominees."
Yet, the conventions still take place. The vote -- the roll call -- will still take place (on Wednesday) but the conventions serve other purposes today.

Basically, they are huge and very expensive parties -- the Democratic Convention will end on Thursday night, and they gather thousands of people -- where the music is interrupted with speeches of key figures of the party.

What do they talk about? Well, sometimes, they talk about political and social issues, the platform of the party. Mostly, though, they talk about their families and their personal histories, and they say "God bless America" and "God bless you all," and they make people cry in the audience.

Okay, so from the French arrogant and cynical point of view, this has nothing to do with politics. A campaign should be about what people want for their society, for their country, and should not care about the candidate's first communion or whether he is nice to his neighbors or not. And the wife of the candidate should not give a speech unless she is a political figure, and the kids of the candidate should not come on stage because they are 10 and 7 and they are not political figures.

In last year's French election, Nicolas, now our dear President, gave such an American taste to his campaign, and it was very annoying. He recurrently appeared with wife and children and that was relatively new, at least to the extent he was doing it. This very American -- and now, I fear, French practice -- gives democracy a monarchical taste, in the sense that monarchy, especially in modern times, is not much else than a show. Get the Queen out for the spectacle of politics while social issues are, or are not, tackled backstage.

When politics is reduced to that show, it is probably rather problematic.

However, this is what people want and need. So Teddy Kennedy and Michelle Obama, yesterday, did an amazing job.

Michelle Obama's big brother first introduced his sister and talked about how good and generous she was. Then Michelle talked about herself, her parents and her husband. She told how poor they were when they were kids, how hard-working her parents were, how they did every sacrifice possible to allow their kids to get a good education. It was very tear-pulling and heart-wrenching for the non-cynical.
But she did what she had to do. Barack's adversaries describe him as an elitist, out of touch with the common Americans. So someone had to set the record straight, had to tell where he comes from, had to depict the blue-collar background that is his. How can you say of someone who was born in poverty, who grew up in a single-mother family, who climbed up the social ladder by simply working hard that he is an elitist. The accusation is plain ridiculous, and Michelle's speech made sure the accusation would sound ridiculous from now on.

In a campaign when the accusations are more about your private life than about your political stances, you cannot simply address political issues when you talk to the voters.

Last night, if you were not moved by Michelle, you had to be moved by Teddy, who spoke before. The guy is fighting a brain cancer, he has had an almost 50 year-old political career in which he fought for what his two assassinated brothers fought, equal civil rights for everybody, and he delivers the only speech that actually addressed some issues -- health care for everybody -- and that tried to unite a divided party around the hope for a better future that their candidate want to inspire. His very presence played the part of moving the teary-eyed audience; he just had to stand there to convey emotions that reach back to November 1963. So he could let his bodily presence play that part and give a political speech.

Even the French arrogant cynic that I am had to concede that yesterday's speeches at the Democratic Convention were darn good and smart politically.

In the meantime, commentators kept talking about what Hillary would say tonight. Is she going to be passionate about her former rival. Are her supporters going to finally swallow the pill of the defeat and see what is more important for them now, the victory of their party's candidate. 25% of Hillary's supporters claim they are going to vote for McCain. Come people, are you voting for a person or for issues that are dear to you? How can you possibly consider voting for John when you supported Hillary? That does not make much sense, does it?