Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Why Do Losers Make Great Speakers?

By Derek Thompson 

Al Gore’s speech last night in Denver was the opposite of his failed 2000 presidential campaign—funny, fresh, even a little inspiring. John Kerry’s speech the night before was quotable and downright side-splitting compared with his wooden self in 2004. And Hillary Clinton’s speech on Tuesday? The sometimes chilly candidate was praised for crushing at the convention center.

Why do we love speeches by candidates who lost? Do we lower the bar out of pity? Or do they really jump higher?

It probably has more to do with the bar. Presidential candidates have to be unflappable but human, talented but humble, transcendent but relatable. But if you lost an election, there’s no such requirement. That’s why Hillary got to talk about the "sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits." Al Gore mocked his own narrow loss. Even Kerry snuck in a line about McCain "being for it before he was against" certain policies.

But self-deprecation isn’t why their speeches succeeded. It’s because they transcended the criticisms that dogged them throughout their campaigns. Hillary seemed more emotive and put her legacy in the context of women’s rights and civil rights. Kerry looked comfortable and aggressive, though he was neither in 2004. And Gore flashed the same hip wonkiness he’s rocked for years—that is, the years after 2000.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s not that losing makes you charismatic. It’s that running for president makes you stiff. Message control is paramount to modern campaigns, but it’s also a candidate’s straitjacket hemmed in by voter interests, poll-tested buzz words, and obligatory nods to patriotism and family. In 2004, Kerry played the military card with painful stiltedness, saluting the audience, "reporting for duty," and yammering about Old Glory. In 2008, Kerry played the consummate Obama advocate, mixing direct attacks on John McCain with flairs of humor that electrified the convention center.

Sen. Clinton slouched off the shackles of candidacy even faster. Often criticized for her coldness on the stump, she gave a generous concession speech in June that drew raves. In Denver, she summed up a central issue—the moral smallness of Hillary-first Democrats like PUMA—better than anyone "I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?" she asked. "Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids?" It was the perfect question, balancing common sense with sentimentality. If she had learned to master that combo eight months ago, Thursday might have represented a different Democratic first.

Assessing the Zingers

By Lucy Morrow Caldwell and Derek Thompson

The Democratic National Convention was about unity, patriotism, and impossible promises. It was also about tearing John McCain into tiny confetti-sized pieces. And this year, the Democrats kept the quips rolling. Some were funny. Some were not so funny. Some we still don’t really understand. But they all infused the notoriously ponderous oratory with a welcome dash of spice. Here are a few of the most memorable zingers from four days of Democratic speechifying.

Best Overall

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts: "Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Sen. McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Sen. McCain’s own climate-change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Sen. McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it."

Best Olympics Tie-In

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio: "If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging, and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international laws."

Most Predictable Home-Ownership Joke

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas: "I’m sure you remember a girl from Kansas who said there’s no place like home. Well, in John McCain’s version, there’s no place like home. Or a home. Or a home. Or a home. Or a home."

Best Acknowledgment of Wonkiness

Al Gore: "John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them, the same policies, all over again. Hey, I believe in recycling, but that's ridiculous."

Best Zinger From the Actual Nominee

Sen. Barack Obama: "Sen. McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90 percent of the time? I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a 10 percent chance on change."

Best Sports Analogy

Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio: "George W. Bush came into office on third base … and then he stole second. And John McCain cheered him every step of the way."

Most Likely To Be Used as a Lame Bumper Sticker

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York: "Now way, no how, no McCain."

Most Strained Metaphor

Gov. Ted Strickland: "And while families are losing sleep tonight trying to figure out some way to make their paycheck stretch through one more day, John McCain is sleeping better than ever. He’s sleeping better than ever because he thinks 'Americans overall are better off,' thanks to President Bush … He has no problem hitting the snooze button on the economy, because he’s never been part of the middle class. And I would say to him: Sen. McCain, it’s time for your wake-up call."

Most Refutable Quip

Gov. David Paterson of New York: "If [McCain] is the answer, then the question must be ridiculous." (How about: Who is the Republican presidential nominee?)

Most Likely To Have Been Written on a Napkin Just Before Going Onstage

Bob Casey: "John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush more than 90 percent of the time. That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick."

Best Use of Pavlovian Allusion

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York: "When the American people demanded change in Iraq, John McCain and his friends said no. When you demanded legislation to lower the price of gas, John McCain and his friends said no. When you demanded middle-class tax relief, John McCain and his friends said no. When Barack Obama wins in November, John McCain will go back to the senate, and he and his friends will go back to saying no, no, no, to the change our country needs."

Most Likely To Have Been Inspired by Dirty Jobs

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois: "A strong economy depends on a strong middle class. But George Bush has put the middle class in a hole, and John McCain has a plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush's shovel."

Any great quips we missed? Do you have a favorite? Looking forward to a zingmeister at the Republican National Convention? Send your comments to Derek.Thompson@slate.com.

Political Karma

Tim Wu sends this dispatch from the Democratic National Convention:

Think yoga and you imagine limber, young people breathing softly. Politics, meanwhile, conjures up the exact opposite image: unhealthy old stiff people screaming at each other.

That's why it might be a surprise to find that yoga has a presence at the Democratic National Convention. "Yoga," said one of Google's political advisers, "is everywhere." Every day in the Big Tent—a sort of holding tank for bloggers—yoga practice is on the morning schedule. But the true epicenter of convention yoga is the Oasis, a lounge that is the brainchild of yogi Seanne Corn, a 41-year-old who looks 26, and one of her students, Arianna Huffington.

The convention itself is a microcosm of the human struggle with desire: Most spend their days in an endless pursuit of the best credentials, party tickets, and celebrity encounters.  But Huffington says she is looking for something more transcendent: "inter-connectedness," or so she told me, a little before taking a break to have a feet rubbed while she poked at her BlackBerry.

Can politics learn anything from yoga? "That we are all one," said Corn, and that "everything that is happening to us is a manifestation of our collective thoughts." A bit like democracy, except you just have to think instead of voting. Can yoga help the Obama/Clinton divide? "Individual healing," says Corn, "is necessary to heal the collective."

Unfortunately for Corn, her efforts to create an alternative vibe in the center of American political culture was, on Tuesday afternoon, running into a few problems. Crowds of men clad in blue blazers, shoulders bent from too much BlackBerry use, began to take over. The number of guests actually choosing to practice yoga was few, with the exception of one online magazine editor being gently pulled apart in a side room. Given a choice, most preferred the hobnob over the downward dog.

And despite its transcendent aspirations, the Oasis does seem to have something of a nonkarmic obsession with reporting on the celebrities who visit the place via the Huffington Post. It would seem that at least one of Buddhism's eight worldly concerns—the desire for fame—remains unconquered.

Yet to their credit, the volunteer yoga teachers and masseuses fought back and re-established a less striving vibe. There were headstands. A man clad in monk's robes conducted a meditation. Someone began to play a guitar. I asked Meaghan deRoos, a yoga teacher who helped me with my headstand practice, whether there was one thing she'd hope the center could accomplish.  "Yes," she said. "Getting people to breathe."

Can the RBC Really Reinstate All of Florida's Delegates?

The Associated Press reported that the Rules and Bylaws Committee cannot fully restore the delegates who were stripped from Michigan and Florida at its meeting, since party rules require a reduction of at least 50 percent since the two states held their primaries early. The report cites a memo sent out by DNC lawyers last night.

But on a conference call today, Clinton adviser and RBC member Tina Flournoy said that’s an "incorrect reading" of the memo. It merely presented arguments that could be made before the RBC, she said, which the committee will then have to evaluate. In other words, the Clinton campaign can still get 100 percent of the delegations seated.

Who’s right?

In strictly technical terms, Clinton’s people are. The memo, which summarizes challenges filed in Florida and Michigan to reinstate part or all of the state’s delegations, goes out of its way not to endorse one stance or another. (Michigan’s Democratic Party requested that all of the state’s delegates be reinstated; Florida DNC member Jon Ausman asked for 50 percent of Florida’s pledged delegates and all of its superdelegates to be counted.) As if to reiterate the memo’s toothlessness, the DNC just sent out a statement calling it an "intentionally neutral" analysis that "does not make specific recommendations."

But in a few key parts, the memo points out how the RBC would basically have to violate DNC rules in order to reinstate more than half the delegations. Here are some examples:

"[I]t seems clear that while the RBC could revoke its additional sanctions, leaving in place the automatic sanctions of Rule 20(C)(1), it does not have authority to reverse or prevent the imposition of those automatic sanctions."—Michigan challenge, Page 3

"If the RBC decides to go as far as it legally can in granting the MDP Challenge, it would revoke the additional December 2007 sanctions and leave in place a 50% automatic reduction in pledged delegates."—Michigan challenge, Page 6

"The legally more defensible view seems to be that the RBC had authority, in its discretion, to impose the additional sanction that it did impose in August 2007, but by the same token, that the RBC now has discretion to revoke those additional sanctions, thereby leaving in effect the automatic sanction of Rule 20(C)(1), i.e., a 50% reduction in pledged delegates."—Florida challenge, Page 6

In other words, the RBC could reinstate all of Michigan or Florida’s delegates (although only the Michigan challenge calls for full reinstatement), but that would violate its own rules. Clinton supporters will likely argue that the RBC has the power to overrule itself. As the memo puts it, the committee "is vested with broad authority … to ‘determine and resolve questions concerning the seating of delegates and alternates to the Convention.' " But it also points out that the committee's power is limited to making states comply with party rules. If there's a resolution to seat the full delegations, that will go to the Credentials Committee in late June, which would then throw it to the convention floor in August.

What does this all mean? That we’re in for a really dull RBC meeting. If the Clinton camp can’t get more than 50 percent of the delegations reinstated, they have no hope of turning the tables on Obama. (Even if they could get all of Michigan and Florida’s delegates to count, it would be virtually impossible to catch up among pledged delegates.) Both camps seem to expect mayhem—Clinton supporters are planning protests, while Obama has urged supporters not to stir things up. But chances are the scene outside the building will be a lot more dramatic than inside.

The Compromise Myth

When it comes to seating Florida’s delegation, the DNC keeps saying it’s going to come to a compromise that’s acceptable to both campaigns. “We all agree that whatever the solution, it must have the support of both campaigns,” said Howard Dean and Florida Democratic Chairwoman Karen Thurman in a joint statement today. But is there really a scenario on which both campaigns are going to agree?

I doubt it. The campaigns’ stances are simple. Everyone says they want the delegations to be seated. But no one agrees on what that means—how many delegates each candidate will get, whether to seat superdelegates but not pledged delegates, or whether to treat Florida and Michigan equally. (Obama's absence from the Michigan ballot complicates things.) From Obama’s perspective, he won’t accept any scenario in which the Florida and Michigan delegations affect the race. Likewise, the Clinton campaign won’t accept any scenario in which they don’t. That means the only way they’ll come to a mutually acceptable compromise is if Obama’s delegate lead is wide enough that seating the Florida and Michigan delegations won’t help Hillary catch up. In other words, if Obama has his way, the delegations will only get seated as long as they don’t matter. But then that would tick Hillary off, taking the negotiations back to square one.

The DNC seems to think it can find a solution without taking sides. I’m still not sure that’s possible. No one said Howard Dean’s job was easy.