convention Coverage: Reporter's Notebook

Bill Clinton’s Reach: All the Way Down to Our Bones

By Jill Kuraitis, 8-27-08

President Bill Clinton is speaking as I write this from Denver.

The joyful welcome you saw on television can’t possibly compare to what it feels like here.  A rumbling, growling sound turns out to be the delegates shifting back and forth on their feet. 

They are too exuberant to be still.

Clinton is raising the proverbial roof with his unmistakable full endorsement of Obama for President: “Hillary told us in no uncertain terms that she’ll do everything she can to elect Barack Obama.”

And then, the classic, perfectly-timed pause of the old Bill Clinton.  “That makes two of us.  Actually, that makes 18 million of us – because, like Hillary, I want all of you who supported her to vote for Barack Obama in November.”

That may turn out to be the most uniting moment of the convention.

With nothing to lose, President Clinton let the Bush administration have it between the eyes. “They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more! Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America:  Thanks, but no thanks.  In this case, the third time is NOT the charm.”

Clinton’s verbal walking tour through the past 16 years of promises and accomplishments realized and then undone was a gut-wrencher for those of us who have desperate feelings about the state of our country. The ruined economy, the trashing of civil liberties, the humiliation of living under a president who is reviled abroad, the horrible realization that we live in a country where prisoners are tortured, the sad divide between the American people – with our old hero Bill speaking right now, it’s tough to take.

But, “Barack Obama will lead us away from the division and fear of the last eight years back to unity and hope,” he told us.  Lifted up again!

There’s nothing like being here to explain how inspiring it can be to sit among thousands of people who “get you” all the way down to your bones, who could read this and feel they wrote it themselves. Even some cynical old journalists can be seen and heard listening raptly. Some have actually applauded.

I set down my computer and did the same.

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