Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, O’Malley leads delegates
in repetitious cheers; plays to convention audience,
seeming to ignore folks at home watching on TV

BILL CLINTON WALKS A FINE LINE
BETWEEN OBAMA AND HIS WIFE
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
It would have been hard if not impossible to top Clint Eastwood’s controversial performance at the Republican National Convention the week before Labor Day, but Martin O’Malley — who has all but announced his candidacy for President in 2016 — certainly succeeded in making himself look foolish at the Democratic bash, waving his arms around, grinning like a Cheshire Cat, and leading the delegates in repetitious cheers.

“Forward, not back” — the Obama campaign slogan, hammered home ad infinitum by O’Malley — just doesn’t have the ring of “Make my day!”  Someone needs to tell O’Malley — and Obama — that.

Nine times in less than eight minutes the Maryland governor led the crowd, waving blue “Forward.” and red “Not Back.” placards (with white letters) in the air, in a chant, reading from the separate signs.

According to the Baltimore Sun‘s TV critic, David Zurawik, the speech “felt far too artificial and gimmicky for the intimacy of TV…. At times he almost seemed to [be] mugging — like a bad actor over-gesturing to make sure the people in the last row of the balcony could see his eyebrows move.”

It was a missed opportunity for the Maryland governor to present himself as presidential.

His performance was in sharp contrast to that of William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, who delivered a masterful — though excessively long — speech the following night, which even paled in comparison to the address of First Lady Michelle Obama, who got high marks from just about everyone for telling the delegates and the country that she loves her husband, and if the rest of us could only see what’s good for us, we would too.

LOVES HIM EVEN MORE NOW

She loves him even more now, she said, than she did four years ago.

Guess so, four years ago she wasn’t living in the White House. And of course she was never proud of America as a country until Barack Obama ran for President.

In 2008 she caused a furor when she said, “For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country,” and then depended on campaign surrogates to try to explain that she hadn’t really meant what she said, even though she said it twice.

The news media, in its lockstep mode, is willing to give her a pass for such previous indiscretions.

What was she really thinking? No one seems to care today.

Similarly, it’s hard to know what O’Malley was thinking when he delivered a history lesson on Maryland’s participation in the Revolutionary War. Why he would think anybody outside of what he painstakingly explained was called the Old Line State would care at this point is anybody’s guess. One would think his speechwriters could have come up with a less boring discussion crafted around Maryland’s other nickname, the Free State.

Or what Clinton is really thinking when he praises Obama. A cogent analysis of the two Presidents’ newfound friendship is in this week’s New Yorker magazine, scheduled for publication Monday but released online last week:  They played golf together a year ago and are now the best of friends.

THE NEW YORKER KNOWS IT

Not really, and of course the New Yorker knows it, noting that “some of their advisers concede that the two men don’t really like each other.” Although it wouldn’t be unprecedented:  Democrat Clinton and former Republican President George H.W. Bush became friends years after the 1992 election, when Clinton unseated Bush.

But the article skirts around the real reasons for Clinton’s “friendship” with Obama.

It would be futile to try and second-guess the most astute politician of our time. (Clinton, not Obama, just to make that clear.) As an orator, Bill Clinton could sell snow to Eskimos.

But a persuasive argument can be made for the fact that an Obama loss in November could well turn into a Hillary win in 2016. However winning will be much more difficult for her then if Obama is reelected now.

So where does that leave her husband? Can he walk the fine line between effusive praise for the nation’s first black President and the first First Lady to be elected U.S. Senator and appointed Secretary of State? Between a man whose successful candidacy four years ago prevented his wife from becoming the first woman President then and whose unsuccessful presidency now may prevent her from accomplishing the feat four years hence?

IT IS BILL CLINTON

If any American politician can do that, it is Bill Clinton.

Hillary did not attend the convention, was traveling — in Europe or somewhere — surely a calculated move to not upstage Obama. But she was nonetheless a presence, the most notable success of his administration.

Her husband is famously called the Comeback Kid, a man able to learn from his mistakes and turn defeat into victory. O’Malley and Obama seem to lack that knack. Although Clinton (Bill, not Hillary) still has never learned not to talk too long: his convention speech extended way beyond his allotted time and included lengthy ad-libs. The delegates however loved it, cheering nearly every turn of phrase.

O’Malley simply talked fast, as if to squeeze in every word without running overtime. And of course he has yet to give the country — or even Maryland — a good reason for his candidacy, other than that it’s something he has always wanted to do.

America is, after all, a country where anyone and everyone can grow up to become President.

In 1988, when then-Gov. Clinton delivered a lengthy convention address for nominee Michael Dukakis, who lost the presidency to George H.W. Bush, the audience cheered when late in the speech Clinton said, “In conclusion…”

Four years later, the Comeback Kid was elected President.
 
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
WATCH O’MALLEY’S SPEECH AT THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION  (click here)