Democratic National Convention

I watched some of the DNC but not too much, mostly just Clinton and Obama. I've seen clips of Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama, and Joe Biden. Other posts cover Clinton's epic speech, here are some articles I've found on the of the DNC:

Factcheck.org: Democratic Disinformation from Charlotte lists what strike me as some political exaggerations made by several speakers. Still Dems (and Reps) shouldn't do this and should be called out for it.

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post Fact checking the opening night of the Democratic convention. I didn't know this about Ryan's updated voucher plan for Medicare, "In the updated Ryan plan, Medicare spending would be permitted to grow slightly faster than the nation’s economy — in fact, at the same growth rate as Obama’s budget for Medicare." Sarah Kliff has a little more on this making it confusing, at the time of Ryan's old plan Romney said he was on the same page, but when Romney released his plan it was different.

Dylan Matthews of Wonkblog, Deval Patrick slammed Mitt Romney last night. But do his facts check out?. The answer is mostly yes, though they found three items that were false.

FactCheck.org says Day 2: More Convention Canards but the four items listed are all shades of grey. Two of them are valid readings of the language of the GOP policy documents while the authors stated views are different.

Still some fact checkers got some things wrong, and digby called them out on it, Fact check follies and Fact Check please.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post ranks Democratic National Convention Night 2: Winners and Losers.

Day 3 ended with speeches by Biden and Obama. Factcheck.org: FactChecking Obama and Biden. NPR lists some others, Fact Checkers Ding Obama And Biden For Some Spinning. But none of these come across to me as serious as most of what Ryan said. WonkBlog on Fact-checking Obama's Speech also found little to complain about.

Kevin Drum wonders Did Obama Phone It In? "Overall, it was a decent wrapup. It was a decent defense of his first term. It was a decent appeal for votes. But there was nothing memorable, nothing forward looking, and nothing that drew a contrast with Romney in sharp, gut-level strokes. Obama was, to be charitable, no more than the third best of the Democratic convention's prime time speakers in 2012."

Ezra Klein says President Obama’s agenda: A return to political normalcy. "If you looked past the rhetoric and focused just on the policy, this was a modest speech. It was a more humble vision. What President Obama offered the country on the final night of the Democratic convention was reminiscent of what Warren G. Harding offered almost a century ago: A return to normalcy after a long period of emergency."

"In its primetime hours, this was a convention pitched to a country exhausted of politics and crises and fighting. Michelle Obama’s testament to her husband’s character, Bill Clinton’s defense of his record, Joe Biden’s admiring retelling of his steely approach to tough decisions, and, finally, President Obama’s detailing of his vision were all trying to do the same thing: Give voters who fundamentally like and trust Obama permission to vote for him again, even if they don’t feel the way they did about him in 2008."

But of course Obama's speech could have been overshadowed by the Friday jobs report which wasn't good. Here it is in five – nay, six! – charts.

Still while it's early, Nate Silver says there might have been a bounce, Conventions May Put Obama in Front-Runner’s Position. "But on Friday, I wrote that Mr. Obama might eventually hold about a five-point lead over Mr. Romney once the tracking polls fully rolled over to post-convention data. Now it looks like his advantage could potentially be a bit larger than that, depending on how long the bounce holds. Despite a mediocre jobs report on Friday, there were no signs in the polls that Mr. Obama’s bounce had immediately receded, as he gained further ground in the surveys that were released on Saturday."

And he adds this which surprised me "In fact, Mr. Romney has never held a lead over Mr. Obama by any substantive margin in the polls."