The Democratic Party sought to highlight Barack Obama’s personal story Monday, stressing the long-shot, inspirational aspects of his sudden success.
Getting the launch is critical, experts say. And the campaign and the party decided the best approach was their nominee’s tale, a story that drew thunderous applause from the delegates.
To get things rolling, the program included a video message from former President Carter talking about the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, as well as a quick appearance from the Nobel Prize winner.
Carter was followed by Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Caroline Kennedy.
Even the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy made something of a surprise visit. Surprised as they were, every delegate in the hall had a “Kennedy” sign ready to go when he took the stage. (The delegates always had the right signs at the right times, an amazing feat given the nearly 6,000 assembled.)
Even so, organizers said they were uncertain until late in the process whether Kennedy would actually speak, and getting the senator to Denver at all had been in doubt until the eleventh hour.
The night ended with a speech from Michelle Obama, wife of the presumptive nominee.
“(Barack Obama) reminded us that we know what our world should look like,” Michelle Obama said. “We know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves, to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be.
“And isn’t that the great American story?”
Speakers filled the night with the campaign’s “Yes We Can” messages and made numerous references to “Change.”
But the combined introduction was short on details about how Obama would lead and focused instead on emotional tributes to the freshman senator.
Experts warned that if the convention fails to get specific, the boost the week is supposed to bring to Obama may not come.
Despite the knocks political conventions get as scripted coronations that lack substance, the events play a decisive role in how voters make their presidential choices.
Since 1944, an average of more than 21 percent of general-election voters picked their candidate during the conventions, according to the American National Election Study.
With so many voters still uncertain about the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, Obama needs to win those percentages if he wants to beat rival John McCain, a longtime senator with a heroic life story.
Monday night’s “One Nation” theme marked an important first attempt for the campaign, said Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist focused on elections and campaign management at Fordham University.
“It’s not enough for (Democrats) to unify behind Barack Obama,” Panagopoulos said. “They need to appeal broadly and beyond the Democratic constituency, the die-hard Democratic constituents, to moderates in both parties and to some Republicans in some key states.”
“It’s the first part of what they need to do, but it didn’t do what I thought it needed to do in that it didn’t transition into what Barack Obama would do for American families,” said Ken Bickers, chair of political science at the University of Colorado. “It was about their family and how important family is to them.
“And that was very sweet and very effective,” Bickers said. “I think it makes people like them more, but whether or not it makes them vote for them more wasn’t really there.”
“Obama has been running a campaign that’s been all Obama all the time, and I think that’s wearing thin,” Bickers had said in the days before the convention. “I think if the Democrats only make this a historic convention about the historic candidate, they’re missing the point.”
“I think it is because they really are ecstatic about his biography,” Bickers said. “But that’s not what puts gasoline in the tank on a daily basis.”
Chuck Plunkett: 303-954-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com
