Dan Rather's Convention Journal

(CBS)  CBS News Anchor Dan Rather offers personal insight and observations from the convention.

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Boston - Democratic Convention, Day One - July 26, 2004

Buzz - if these multi-day, multi-media events are about anything, they're about trying to generate this. In the creation of buzz, the greatest target is not the convention hall itself, but the big audience out there: the TV-watching, radio-listening, Internet, "blog" and newspaper-reading public. So maybe those of us in the press, or the media, if you like, are in the wrong place to gauge the success of the convention on this score, as we are all here, transmitting the hoped for buzz or lack thereof to America at large.

Nevertheless, since here we are, what of the buzz in and around the convention hall? On Day One, you'd have to have ears like a jackrabbit to pick it up. It's been slight. It's been subtle. And what buzz there has been has centered on the women: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Teresa Heinz Kerry - the First Lady that was and the First Lady that would be. Teresa for what she said, Hillary for what she did not.

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What to make of the "Shove it" heard 'round the world? Maybe the first and biggest lesson to be drawn from this overblown episode is, the more you try to script every little thing, the more even the smallest bit of unscripted verbiage will swell to disproportionate apparent size. Not that this will stop either party from trying to script and stage-manage every political event.

Has the baseline of civility in politics ever been so low? The answer is yes - these things are cyclical. But there's no mistaking that it is now in one of its periodic troughs. Ironically, this was one of the points that Mrs. Kerry was making in the scripted speech before her unscripted speech.

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Senator Clinton was civil as always today when I talked to her - over the years she has learned great politesse through hard experience (remember the "Stand By Your Man" controversy?), and if she was feeling the sting of any unrealized ambitions on this day when her speaking role was to consist of introducing her husband and talking up the Kerry/Edwards ticket, she certainly didn't let on to me.

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Memo to John Kerry, following his Fenway Park appearance: Work on throwing a baseball; if elected, this is something you're going to have to do more often. Then again, President Bush's pitches aren't exactly Cy Young material, either, considering his past as part owner of the Texas Rangers. And, Senator, focus on the football, the baseball and the hockey. The windsurfing, the snowboarding and the skiing … they may be a little too high-style for the great American middle. And who says presidential races have come to turn on trivialities?

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Speaking of sports, the Democrats let loose a shocker today, along the lines that we "shouldn't expect too much bounce" in the polls out of the convention. Hearing this come from the party's spinmeisters is about as surprising as hearing a convention begin with the singing of the national anthem.

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Senator Kerry is reportedly working on finalizing his speech. Did he watch President Clinton tonight? (Which incidentally ended pretty much right on time, a real feat for a man known for his marathon oration.) If so, he must realize that the bar for his own performance — speaking again of sports — has effectively been raised.

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As she took the podium tonight to sustained applause, Senator Clinton told the gathered delegates that the uproarious reception "left her speechless." Nevertheless, she took her full turn as a speaker. Her initially predicted four-minute introduction stretching into more than ten. But as her would-be successor as a first lady is learning, in these tightly scripted conventions, sometimes speechless can be the better part of valor.


Rather's Journal, Day 2: DullsvilleRather's Journal, Day 3: Going Positive