President Obama delivers his nomination acceptance speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention around 7:30 pm PST/10:30 pm EST.
You’re invited to join us tonight for a Live Chat throughout the night, leading up to President Obama’s speech. The convention’s program begins today at 2:00 pm PST/5:00 pm EST.
You can watch and live chat in one of two ways:
1. You can watch the live feed below and use the Live Chat widget which appears in the right sidebar.
2. You can go to our Live Events page (click the link or click on the Live Events menu item above) which will carry the live feed as well as a full Live Chat screen.
If you’re watching on tv, we recommend using the Live Events page for your Live Chatting enjoyment.
BTW, Vice President Joe Biden will also be speaking tonight (around 6:30 pm PST/9:30 pm EST).
Also, please feel free to leave comments in this thread throughout the day about all things regarding the DNC Convention and you can continue the conversation here after the live chat concludes.
DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION LIVE FEED:
President Obama’s speech will be one for the ages as he continues to define the roll government should have in our lives. On this essential point his oratory was as lofty and inspiring as ever. If you buy into the reality that government is not the problem and can be the solution when all other avenues don’t exist it was his most effective speech in a while. Moreover this philosophy was born out with his actions during his first term. Despite what Republicans say now the only entity that could have saved the auto industry was government. Otherwise not only a million jobs would be lost but many more. He also pointed out that government is not for the benefit of corporate and special interests, it’s for the benefit of people and it can only be that way if people participate in their civic duties. Obama understood that getting everyone access to affordable healthcare was the same type of task that the private market could not do on it’s one as well.
For thirty years every president before Obama including Clinton demonized government. Remember it was Clinton who called big government dead. Government needs to be exactly the size it needs to be to service it’s people. The insanity of those against ‘big government’ just don’t understand we have a huge nation both from a population and geographical standpoint. It’s utterly childish to think a bare-bones government can service the needs of it’s people. The ironic part is people know this from empirical evidence. For example if a company like Apple has an amazing new technology like an iPad, no one questions the size Apple needs to be to introduce that product to the mass marketplace. No one says Apple needs to downsize so people can’t have access to iPads with no logical reason to downsize. So for people to question the size that government needs to be to provide seniors healthcare and everyone access to healthcare of course it needs to be a huge endeavor. FFS it’s 1/6 of the economy.
I know some cynical pundits don’t get this but they never get Obama’s long game. He’s not making speeches that are flashes where the themes die quickly but smoldering fires that wake people up to the way our future should be.
I agree, KQ. The core — the essence — of that speech was the message to the American people that the government is not some evil alien being. The government is YOU. You ARE the government. “WE the people”!
As you quoted, he was trying to revive the notion of citizenship — quaint concept that it may be — and of the “necessary work of self-government.”
People have been so poorly educated and have been brain-washed for so long that they’ve all but forgotten that that is what democracy IS. Self-government!
What that Repubs are advocating is really a form of anarchy/corporatocracy/plutocracy. Not democracy. Not self-government.
Outstanding convention. Remarkable speeches from the heart, and a wonderful closing with the President and Joe Biden. How could anyone not be moved if they truly love their country, and how could anyone now vote for Romney, that thought leaves me gasping for air. It was worth the tired eyes I now have after watching the whole 3 days with only a few bathroom breaks. I had the sniffles after the President’s speech, and I can’t even vote. Now for a break. Take care.
I’m really dissapointed in Tomasky’s reaction to Obama’s speech. He still thinks it’s 2008 and Obama needed to offer rhetoric without real choices.
Tomasky strikes me as the kind of pundits we were discussing in the live chat, egotistical and bent on forcing events to fit his smug and cynical predictions. Also, I really don’t put much weight into the Daily Beast’s right-leaning spin in general. Don’t sweat it, he is by far in the minority and clueless about the true impact of Obama’s speech and the DNC.
I was on Twitter tonight as you were and saw a very broad sampling of reactions. None were so dismissive as Tomasky’s and I do trust in the sensibilities of Planeteers over pundits.
Tomasky is good when he’s analyzing a situations without expectations attached, but for sure prior to the SOTU and this speech he shamelessly played the expectations game. It’s not expectations about the quality of the speech but the know-it-alls get pissed when their predictions of what they think should be in the speech are wrong. Again this speech will be the kind of pivot people remember years to come because Obama will follow through with more speeches and most importantly policy.
I see from Andrew Sullivan who liked that speech mostly because Obama mentioned he wanted to follow the guidelines of his bipartisan debt commission that his readers really liked the speech because it did frame the two different visions of America so well. So the bottom line is if you have a cynical view of the future or didn’t get your individual bell rung you didn’t get what the speech was all about.
Hi K, I haven’t watched or read anything about what other bloggers, the media or pundits have had to say about any part of the Dem convention so far. I have eyes and ears and a working mind to decide for myself if it was good or bad, strong or weak, and President Obama is no longer a Senator like he was in 2008, he’s had almost 4 years of what I believe to one of the most difficult and divided presidencies in recent history, so someone criticizing a man who has stopped America falling out of the sky, doesn’t interest me at the moment, not even from Tomasky. If these people want to do something constructive, then vote for him instead of picking him apart, it just looks so petty when it’s obvious that no one could have done it any better than he did, and his opponent is a first class arsehole like Romney.
There have been a few times since Tomasky left The Guardian that I have disagreed with him, and writing at other sites where frantic emoprogs still write factless articles, can’t be much of an advantage. Some people will take the whole hand when you only offer a finger. Wanting and expecting too much from Obama is the problem of that person and not Obama’s, who hasn’t offered the earth, moon or stars, and even tonight reiterated his 2008 words that change doesn’t happen overnight, and some will forget that by the time he starts his second term. Most people’s dissatisfaction stems from the fact that they forget he is everyone’s president and not that he didn’t fulfill his promises, because he did. To me that is what spoiled children do, and if they want someone who can promise them all everything right now, but later go back on their promises, then they should vote for Romney, he’s the crowd pleaser to end all crowd pleasers.
I really don’t want to spoil this 3 day buzz by reading anything right now, I’m up to my eyebrows in negativity, and really want to make it to November 6th without an ulcer. I don’t give a flying nun about what the other side has to say either, there isn’t one person there with an ounce of integrity anyway, why waste my time on a bunch of losers.
All I know for a fact is that for 3 days I’ve heard the truth and that made such a wonderful change from all the crap the other side has been selling on seedy street corners.
Hi again K, just to let you know that I read Tomasky’s piece and was rather surprised that he sounded so dull and boring himself. What he totally missed in his blindfolded short piece is that Obama is still the President and personal trumpet blowing with over confidence would have seemed out of place. Surely he has covered politics long enough to know that the rest of the speakers were the build up and they covered all the issues that it was better the President didn’t cover in detail. So I’m surprised rather than disappointed because it feels as if Tomasky had been watching an entirely different speech to what millions of others had seen and heard. What p’ed me off the most was that he left the door open at the DB for ignorant RW troll comments and I always felt he could rise above that. Well Mr. Tomasky, you might have been bored, but the President got more than your predicted 3 point bounce, so please explain that when you come off from your cynical high horse. He has been spot on about so many things in the past, on this he was dead wrong, and unfortunately either becoming far too cynical, or like many, expecting far too much from one man.
Hey Kalima! It has been a remarkable 3 days with day after day surprising in the power and sincerity of so many speeches.
No one in their right mind could vote for Romney now…so at least we’ll know who’s crazy by who they vote for!
I am more confident than ever that Obama will be re-elected and hoping the Dems pick up seats in Congress. We shall see but the choice is stark now. Either vote for a remarkable man or a shallow, greedy liar.
I think that what is left to do now by individuals, is see that enough people are registered to vote, continue to disprove the GOP’s many lies, and hope that the remaining ads from the Obama team hit the spot with many undecided voters, although how they could be undecided now, beats me on oh so many levels. Those that will vote for Romney are beyond hope or help. They will vote for a man who cares nothing about them, will take away their rights, their freedom of choice, their healthcare and their Medicare, while going in to strike Iran and declaring another “Cold War” with Russia and China, all because the President is black. So much for progress and America being #1 in the world.