Category Archives: Bill Clinton

As every speech at the Democratic National Convention seemed to get better and better, Bill Clinton stepped up and delivered on his promise to endorse Barack Obama with full conviction.

Carrying on Hillary Clinton’s theme of reminding voters of the republicans’ failures while using his administration’s accomplishments to strengthen the promise of Obama’s potential administration, Clinton proved that despite some of his continued bitterness behind the scenes, he, like most democrats, is a democrat first.

Clinton soon made his objectives clear, “last night, Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she is going to do everything she can to elect Barack Obama…that makes two of us. Actually, that makes 18 million of us. Because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November.”

But perhaps the most telling moment in Clinton’s speech is when he revoked the past statements of the Clinton campaign that Obama was not ready to lead on day one. “Barack Obama is ready to be president of the United States.”

He backed this up by willingly comparing himself to Obama. “My fellow Democrats,” he began, “16 years ago, you gave me the profound honor to lead our party to victory and to lead our nation to a new era of peace and broadly shared prosperity.Together, we prevailed in a hard campaign in which Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief… Sound familiar?”

Nobody in the Obama campaign, no Obama supporter, and no objective journalist can say the Clintons haven’t fully endorsed Barack Obama. Surely, the Obama campaign was extremely happy with both the Clintons’ speeches over the past two days. And surely, no loyal Clinton supporter can vote for McCain or stay home any longer, unless their support was superficial or personality-based in the first place.

Then, with the Clintons at his back, Joe Biden then stepped up to the podium and accomplished his two principal objectives: reminding everyone about his middle-class roots (Didn’t his mother look like everyone’s grandma? The pride in her tearing eyes was as legitimate and refreshing in that black-hole of politics as any other moment in the convention), and easily fitting into the vice-presidential candidate’s role as attack dog.

In comparison to Hillary and Bill Clinton’s speeches, Biden’s was mediocre. It did get the job done though, and showed that Biden is one of the best at moving from a humorous joke (or the best Freudian Slip of his life, mistaking McCain’s name for Bush’s) to a serious attack.

But the Obama campaign surprised everyone (including the media!) when Obama showed up on stage with Biden and his family at the end of the speech, a stirring moment that drew several minutes of applause. The atmosphere was electric, and the convention seemed to be finally culminating towards Obama’s speech in front of 75,000 people on Thursday.

But Obama owes a lot to the Clintons. This was as much their convention as it was his, because it’s success ultimately hinged on their ability to unify their party. And unify they did.

When Hillary Clinton motioned in the early evening to suspend the presidential nomination’s roll call to nominate Obama by acclamation (which was accomplished in a few short seconds), she closed the book and healed the wounds of a highly contested primary season. Bill carried the baton further, and now it’s Obama’s turn. He is in a very risky position, because the bar for his speech has been set so high by his two most influential new supporters.

–Thomas Pavone is the managing editor of the Michigan Journal of International Affairs–