The J-J dinner as covered by Democrats in good standing who thought Obama did a good job. They had some other opinions too. Michael Crowley:

Hillary’s speech featured a vow to “turn up the heat” on the Republican machine–expressed by a call-and-response with the crowd that seemed slightly labored to me, and also far less vigorous than the ferociously energetic “Fired Up! Ready to go!” chanting of Obama’s supporters earlier in the night…One puzzle was Hillary’s exceedingly slow and deliberate presentation: She sounded as though she were addressing someone who speaks shaky English, a bit in the style of the circa-2000 Al Gore…

(A footnote: Hillary worked in a crack about how Republican fiscal policies have “turned China into our banker.” This “yellow-peril” line has Bill’s fingerprints all over it: In his speech at the 2004 convention he said, “If you believe it is good policy to pay for my tax cuts with the Social Security checks of working men and women and borrowed money from China and Japan, you should vote for them. If not, John Kerry’s your man.”)

Garance:

Could Hillary Clinton have been any more stilted? I sat myself in the chilly balcony area with her supporters, where her junior campaign staff refused to say anything to me when I tried to make friendly small talk, not even telling me what they did, and the on cue beating of yellow noise-makers provided a background of loud, impersonal percussion. Her supporters had the miscellaneous appearance of the genuinely downtrodden or socially forgotten, unlike the hale and hearty college students and lively, well-to-do middle-class families in Obama’s sections. Other than a few chants of “Hillary, Hillary,” her supporters restricted themselves to beating their noise-makers mechanically…

I listened to Clinton veer between a soft-spoken, almost transquilized tone and grating crescendos that, regrettably, can only be described as shrill. Her new campaign theme of turning up the heat on the Bush administration was not accompanied by any corresponding warmth in her voice or manner…the speech had a curiously dispassionate quality about it. I’ve seen her more animated and freer in the past discussing the arcana of foreign policy, or even cellulistic ethanose.

We know who these folks are going to vote for, but do we detect a certain lack of enthusiasm about the choice?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Democrats, MSM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.