American Dreamer: Dreams Deferred
Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.
By Kid Beyond
On Tuesday afternoon, to a half-filled hall, Dennis Kucinich gives the best speech you won't see on any front page, at the top of any news hour. He has the audacity to shout from the rooftops that the Emperor Has No Clothes. "Wake up, America! The insurance companies took over health care! Multinational corporations took over our trade policies! Wake up, America! We went into Iraq for oil!"
The man is en fuego. He's a mean, green, righteous-indignation machine. In the crowd, mouths are agape. Check out the short guy! Incredulous jaws are hitting the floor. He's whipping them into a frenzy. Black folks, white folks. It's like Showtime at the Apollo, when the audience finally realizes, "Hey, that white boy can sing."
Content-wise, it's old news to most Guardian readers. But in the centrist halls of the DNC, speaking naked truth to power is a subversive act indeed. They're still cheering Kucinich 30 seconds into the next speaker, the unfortunately-slotted California Controller John Chiang.
Obama's not allowed to be angry; he'd be an Angry Black Man. Hillary's not allowed to be angry; she'd be an Emasculating Harpy. Kucinich is the Anger News Network, and no one outside of Berkeley, Portland, and Ann Arbor takes the man seriously.
Is it the height thing? Is it that he's only a Congressman? If he were a 6'2" Senator, would the man fall on ears less deaf? Or is his rhetoric just too raw for prime-time?
You decide. At 2:40 it starts heating up.
Mark Warner's keynote speech is the just the opposite. With his strong jaw, toothy mouth, and effortless shock of hair, he looks like the long-lost Kennedy cousin. He is solid, appealing, and 100% electricity-free. It makes you marvel at the coup Barack Obama pulled off 4 years ago: Little-known senatorial candidate + Riveting keynote speech = 2008 Nominee. No such luck for Mark Warner.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer steals the show. He's Will Rogers meets Jay Leno. "I'm a rancher, made my living raising cattle, growing wheat and barley in Montana. I chose a Republican to be my lieutenant governor -- with the simple proposition that we could get more done working together than we could fighting."
He's Obama in a jowly white-guy suit. He's humble, affable, breezy, confident. He's having fun, he's enjoying himself. He makes renewable energy sound as easy and fun as a backyard barbecue. The crowd is eating out of the palm of his folksy hand. And when he starts blasting "petro-dictators," you're not sure if he's talking about OPEC or ExxonMobil, and you don't care.
Finally, the main event. In the cavernous, chattering Pepsi Center, all sound mutes to a hush: Hillary. She is what they came to see, and she delivers. She is impressive, polished, flawless, scarily capable -- an Olympic gymnast nailing every move in her floor routine.
She big-ups Obama early and often, obliterating any concern that her endorsement might be wishy-washy or bitter. She is hard-hitting, passionate, inspirational, connecting Harriet Tubman and Seneca Falls to single moms and veterans without health care. She nails McCain to Bush with the best joke of the night: "It makes perfect sense that [they] will be together next week in the Twin Cities, because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart."
It's the speech of her life. She says nothing controversial, nothing off-script or off-message, but she has never been more presidential, and everyone in the room knows it.
When she finishes, I look behind me to a row of women spanning three generations -- grandmothers, mothers, daughters. Tears are in their eyes. Tears of hope and joy and inspiration and disappointment. Tears for a dream deferred.
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