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Hillary Speaks

Sen. Clinton's voice was hoarse and tired as she addressed the roughly 2,000 delegates, Party activists and press, making her case as to why she should be elected the next President of the United States. She entered the room with an entourage of public officials and supporters, and to a smattering of boos from the audience.

Her stump speech mostly glossed over Iraq, not surprisingly, but otherwise focused on typical red-meat Democrat issues: global warming, public education, health care. She had trouble keeping the crowd's attention, and things got pretty testy toward the end when she did talk about Iraq. There is a strong anti-war contingent at this convention, as there always is, and they made their views known.

Sen. Clinton did talk about immigration, which was impressive, particularly because it wasn't strictly "enforcement first." She got one of her biggest applause lines when she asserted that we needed to do everything in our power to "bring people out of the shadows."

My biggest critique of her speech, and her campaign generally, comes not from policy or ideology, but from her inability to tell a good story about this moment in history, and Democrats' role in it. Her story is negative -- she tells us we are "invisible," as opposed to making us feel hopeful -- and the individual anecdotes she tells feel stale at best, and insincere at worst. When she talks about issues, she relies on the laundry list (health care - check, environment - check, pro-choice - check), and adds nothing about what binds us all together as progressives.

We desperately need that if we're going to win in 2008.

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