And, so the Dems march on.

Wednesday night was John Edwards night in Boston. Thought that Elizabeth Edwards seemed authentic. She’s a bankruptcy lawyer, so it wasn’t like I’d expect her to be a hugely polished speaker, but she was fine. Edwards seemed lessy sparky than I have seen him in previous instances (I do wonder if I’m on a political news binge exhaustion), but he stayed nicely positive in his speech. His “One America” lines echoed (if not parroted) Barak Obama’s speech about “One America.”

If you want more commentary on Edwards’ speech, I do recommend Chris Suellentrop’s article on Slate.com – and I agree with Suellentrop’s assessment – Edwards had poignant moments in his speech (particularly about his family) and the whole positiveness was nice, but the speech was ultimately just okay – not spectacular, but “does the job,” as Suellentrop said.

I liked that ABC’s “Nightline” and PBS captured some coverage of the roll call. I liked how Tavis Smiley on PBS interviewed interesting people (last night, Smiley spoke with the mayor of Detroit, who just happened to be a youngish black man who is yet another ambitious youngish Democrat; the mayor highlighted the young as an electorate – who are not only interested in education and health care, but also becoming entrepenuers and looking for a brighter future). Heck, even Howard Dean seemed interesting on Smiley’s show, talking about stuff other than just about us Dems going to every state in the union and his usual refraining from screeching…

Thursday was The Real Kerry night. Ooh. (cannot comment on the other Thursday night speeches, which I missed; will have to catch up somehow). The stepsons Heinzes and the daughters Kerry were interesting. I liked how Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry told a few stories that humanized their father. Kerry saved the life of the Kerry pet hamster? Well, as Alexandra Kerry noted, her father apparently takes such life affirming things seriously.

And, Kerry himself stayed positive in his speech. If he seemed incredibly idealistic (to the point that I wondered if this was too much to swallow – I mean, I’d still like some more specifics on what he has in mind to be a good president), Kerry at least seemed confident and more enthused than I’ve seen him previously. The pundits seem to think that this is good for the Democrats. I don’t know (I’m not a pundit, not really anyway), but I liked that Kerry seems to be on a roll. He seemed genuine and, well, happy (all that smiling – good grief, did something from Edwards rubbed off on Kerry?). Whether the speech’s substance was that persuasive is another story.

It will be interesting to see the Republican Party response to all the positiveness that the Dems’ have pushed. Not looking forward to the possible congestion in NYC, but I don’t work in midtown, so it’d be regular work days. I’ll be sticking with PBS for wall-to-wall coverage, especially if the networks continue putting on these one-hour a night coverages that they’ve been doing…

(sidenote rant: if Al-Jazeera in the Middle East is showing 12 hours of the American party conventions, why are the American networks doing so much less? Well, yes, I know that they’re doing that because they’re trying to maintain the whole pursuit of ratings, but they’ve got to do better – the networks’ coverage of news events unites a nation – like they did with the Reagan state funeral – or at least gives us some cultural commonality that we can point to – or else they’re making self-fulfilling prophecies that Americans won’t watch the conventions by being the ones not showing the conventions, as Ted Koppel noted on “Nightline” last night; silly me actually expects the networks to not be businesses and be idealistic in pursuing journalism – then again, the conventions are scripted but then again – even the scripted stuff says something about us as a people…).

Ok, take a breath now. Rant over.

Is it already football season? Good grief, the Giants and the Jets are at it in their respective summer camps. Umm, baseball season isn’t over, last I checked. But, cute moment on the sports segment on the local news – Chad Pennington, the Jets quarterback, discussed what favorite item he brought with him to summer camp – his dvd’s of the 1st season of… Dukes of Hazzard? Funny, Chad. Very funny. 😉 (umm, then again, I’m the one who still sees Tom Wopat and John Schneider as Luke and Bo Duke)…

Summery weather in NYC. Enjoy…