Conventional wisdom.  Or, perhaps, just the wisdom you get while you're watching the conventions.  Anyway, both the Democrats in Denver and the Republicans in St. Paul are through with their quadrennial celebrations of themselves, in which many party leaders (plus a few up-and-comers) give speeches about just how good their party is, and just how awful the other party is.  This year was no exception, speech-wise.  But during the St. Paul coronation, there was a big surprise.  More on that later...

I went through the Toad Hall archives and found words that prove once and for all that I do not have the gift of prophecy.  Waaaaaaay back when, the Human Rights Campaign sponsored a "meet the candidates" night, televised on the gay cable station Logo.  I gave my impressions on the candidates' performances, and came down hard on Barack Obama.  I thought his performance that night was not up to standards.  But apparently he can learn.  His speeches all through the primary campaign got better and better -- not perfect, mind you, but much better than the HRC/Logo stuff.

Leaving the past behind, what do I think of the four candidates -- Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin?

Barack Obama:  It was Bill-the-Honeybear who first made me aware of Obama, way before the primary race started, when Bill heard him speak at a progressives' convention in DC.  I looked, I listened, and I was won over.  I'd not heard words such as his, defiantly hopeful, coolly devastating to his Democratic rivals as well as his Republican opponents, intellectual but with pools of deep emotion lying just underneath, since last I heard Ronald Reagan speak.  (And say what you will about the man, Reagan really could make a good speech.)

He did the same at the convention.  Granted, he kept out of the spotlight, for the most part, until his acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium (which is what old-time Denver people call Invesco Field).  He let the grand lions of the party -- ailing Teddy Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and many others -- take center stage at the start.  Then his running mate-to-be, Joe Biden, the Delaware Senator who takes Amtrak home each night and still remembers his blue-collar upbringing in Scranton, PA.  Then Michelle Obama -- wife, mother, tigress, proud and protective of her man and her family.

Finally, the man himself.  So what if the stage had columns that looked like leftover scenery from Spartacus?  You'd never know it from the camera angles; whenever the camera wasn't on the crowd at the stadium, or picking out a face in said crowd, it was tight on him at the podium.  And did he speechify!  Picking up the major threads of his primary campaign, giving a little more detail on how he planned to handle some major problems, and giving the Republicans (and the creators of their attack ads, with John McCain's "and I approved this ad") what for.

Joseph Biden:  The man most people figured would be chosen to run with Obama, was chosen.  For those who see this as some kind of betrayal of Obama's message of change, the truth of the matter is that Biden is the best fit for Obama's running mate.  He fills in all the perceived holes the Republican attack ads were exploiting.  Biden is solid, from a Catholic working-class background, with a strong record in the Senate for proven leadership and enormous expertise in foriegn affairs.  Think of the mix of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and how each of them made up for deficiencies in the other.  That's Obama and Biden.

I'll continue in the next post about the Republicans.