Hillary Clinton's Speech: How Great Was That?
The Times was evidently quite impressed with Hillary Clinton's prime-time speech at the Democratic Convention Tuesday night, in which she urged her supporters to put aside their differences and get behind Barack Obama. A Wednesday morning blog post on "The Caucus" from Kate Phillips and Michael Falcone is even asking readers to submit their favorite lines from Hillary's speech. It sounds like Democrats talking amongst themselves (whichmay be true, judging by the solid liberal tilt of Times commenters).
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech last night received solid - even rave reviews - from disparate corners.
Women seemed to connect more to segments of the speech they found inspirational, for example how she bound generation to generation of women going forward. (The line from Senator Clinton's ultimate concession in June at the National Building Museum in Washington - that there were "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" has become golden, repeated by Senator Obama and his wife Michelle.) It was pitched forward last night by Chelsea Clinton in that video montage as a metaphor for how the cracks opened new windows of opportunity. But were men as impressed?
So we throw these questions out to our readers:
Did Senator Clinton, wearing the sisterhood of the bright orange traveling pantsuits, deliver a speech that will endure? Did it find more receptive ears among women than men?
And did it accomplish what Democrats hoped it would do, bring those disaffected, alienated, irritated Clinton loyalists underneath the Obama tent? Was she persuasive enough?
Did you have a favorite line from the speech? Our interactive graphic allows you to trace text and video clips from her talk.
