For my sins, I ended up watching a lot of both conventions this year - what can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment. Obviously, I saw lots of differences between the two, but...
The most effective speech I saw from the RNC was Ivanka Trump introducing her father. She made him human, and she obviously loved him. I was almost at the point of being willing to consider looking at him. (Unfortunately, then he came on and started spewing obvious lies and fear. The crime stats he used were misleading at best and flat wrong in some places. He didn't offer any concrete facts or plans for what he would do to make sure that crime came to a stop January 20th, 2017 - although he used the line several times. It just didn't work at all for me.)
I saw several great speeches from the DNC - loved Michelle Obama's speech the first night, and I fell for her obvious affection and pride for her friend, Hillary. (Considering the fairly vicious fight for the nomination in 2008, the fact that they are now friends makes me impressed with both of their characters.) Bill's speech on Tuesday was a total love letter, but an effective one - while telling the story of their lives together, he also managed to bring out her relentless activism for the disadvantaged and downtrodden, and brought up things I didn't know about her - and as I might have mentioned, I'm a bit of a politics nerd. And of course, the passing of the torch by Barack Obama on Wednesday just made my heart lift...
But the bit that really showed me that the democratic party is where I belong, and that I can feel safe with my vote going to Hillary even though I voted for Bernie in the primary, was Khizr Khan's speech, with Ghazala standing with him. They're the gold star parents of Humayan Khan, and if you didn't see the speech, or the introduction to it, it's so worth going back for. But while the speech was incredibly effecting (it made me cry, and I think I may have seen a tear or two in Roger's eyes as well), it also pointed out the stark difference between the two conventions. The reason that the Khans (who were not necessarily Democrats, by the way) were at the convention is because Hillary Clinton had found out about them during one of her listening tours during the primary race, and recognized their sacrifice and their unwavering loyalty to this country, even after they lost their son. This is the sort of thing that we should be celebrating as a country, in my opinion, and I'm so glad both that she was listening and that they were given a national outlet.
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