Both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama gave memorable speeches, these past two days of the Democratic Convention. I thought Clinton's speech was forceful and sincere enough to prove that she really is dedicated to helping Barack Obama win the presidency. Though we'll have to wait for the poll results to see if she was effective in swaying her supporters over to Obama's side, the speech was the product of a political master weaving her finest work.
But I'm even more impressed with Michelle's speech last night - much more human and delivered nearly flawlessly. And the big difference between Michelle, and Hillary, Barack and most of the other speakers at the show, was that Hillary and Barack and the others are professional politicians - public speaking in front of big crowds is what they do for a living, and you would expect them to knock an important speech like this out of the box.
Michelle Obama isn't a professional speaker, and to deliver that kind of performance in front of 30,000 people at the convention and another few million on live TV is a really mindblowing thing. The biggest crowd I ever had to speak to was 600 in Istanbul a couple of years ago. It was a huge rush but it wasn't easy. 30,000?? Come on...
She's really an extraordinary woman.
Posted by case at August 26, 2008 09:31 PM