Focus

Without being able to watch it, I tried catching up with what I could of the Democratic Convention, over the days that followed.

While I approached this with much trepidation, it seems that some apt messages were there, as heard from Sister Simone Campbell, Elizabeth Warren, and others.

I don't know how much beyond the big name appearances was aired in network prime time. Much of what was effective was the bully pulpit stuff the administration should have been doing from the start. As Michael Shaw says, powerful as this family's story is, it "just as powerfully hits on how the administration has come up short in framing the debate, and now, defending the [Affordable Care] law itself, in more visceral terms."

One talking point was the unconvincing boast of "ending" the Iraq war. I certainly see the political logic there. I also see the logic of boasting about killing the boogeyman—no matter how unseemly snd short-sighted it may be. That's in the context of global perceptions, as well as making murder into this banal bit of cheerleading, in a country so desensitized to violence and disappearing civil liberties.

And this miserable attempt at pandering to "faith": high-profile appearance by a (tax-exempt) political enemy and mouthpiece of a certain pedophile-protecting institution.

Whatever degree of successful PR and politicking was achieved, there was also what Pierce called "The Thing Nobody Talked About at the Conventions"—

The Democrats are caught in a bind, because they have to play in the new universe of campaign finance, too, and because they're trying to keep up with a symphony of well-financed propaganda that seeks to make voter-suppression into a good-government initiative. John Lewis is not fooled. John Lewis has seen this before. And John Lewis told the convention what he's seeing rising in the country out of his own past.

Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar-all to keep them from casting their ballots. Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state's new voter ID law is "gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state." That's not right. That's not fair. That's not just. And similar efforts have been made in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina. I've seen this before. I've lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.

And that is simply the way it is, and, if you don't like the truth there, you're welcome to get your brains nearly beaten out of you on the Edmund Pettus Bridge so you would begin to have the most basic qualifications to argue with John Lewis about it.

From Digby: the speech transcript.

Pierce concluded that—

If I were running the president's campaign, I'd shut the hell up about Simpson-fking-Bowles and put John Lewis on an airplane and let him tell his story in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and everywhere else this atavistic authoritarian nonsense is going down. There's more at risk here than anyone knows.

The next day, Pierce talked to North Carolina delegate Stella Adams—

Adams credited Lewis, who also addressed the entire convention Thursday night, for attempting to remain positive in the face of today's relentless assaults on civil liberties, especially voter rights. "Who would have thought this would happen in his lifetime?" she asked. "John Lewis, who was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, will see all of his work undone because we don't understand what's at stake."

"It's ancient times — we can't go back to that," she continued, her voice breaking. "How far back does Mitt Romney want to take us? To the back of the bus? To strange fruit in trees?"

On Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, Adams, who describes herself as a "Bible-toting, scripture-quoting, pro-choice, choose-life woman," will begin a fast that she plans to continue until Election Day. She may stave off hunger and join friends monitoring early voting places. She'll have plenty of opportunity. This past Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled North Carolina elections board used their advantage to buck the national trend and increase early voting opportunities for state residents.

"I've really been motivated... to protect my daughter’s future," Adams said, with a hint of new resolve in her voice. Her daughter, Danielle, a graduate student at Appalachian State University, is also a North Carolina delegate. "We will win this election, or we will lose our future."

Or, as Matt Taibbi lays out the economic terms of the 1-percenter's fast one Romney/Ryan are aiming to pull—

Obama ran on "change" in 2008, but Mitt Romney represents a far more real and seismic shift in the American landscape. Romney is the frontman and apostle of an economic revolution, in which transactions are manufactured instead of products, wealth is generated without accompanying prosperity, and Cayman Islands partnerships are lovingly erected and nurtured while American communities fall apart. The entire purpose of the business model that Romney helped pioneer is to move money into the archipelago from the places outside it, using massive amounts of taxpayer-subsidized debt to enrich a handful of billionaires. It's a vision of society that's crazy, vicious and almost unbelievably selfish, yet it's running for president, and it has a chance of winning. Perhaps that change is coming whether we like it or not. Perhaps Mitt Romney is the best man to manage the transition. But it seems a little early to vote for that kind of wholesale surrender.