Aftertaste less bitter than some feared
DENVER - The sky did not fall, and blood is not running in the streets of the Mile High City today as the Democrats decamp after a four-day national convention that produced drama, but little of the acrimony some had predicted.
By most assessments, party activists needed only spackle, not major repairs, to fix the cracks that developed during a long and testy nominating contest, and enter the last stretch to the general election appearing united behind Barack Obama.
An aura of unity at a convention, however, does not a victory make, and Democratic and Republican strategists interviewed by the Globe said the burden now shifts to Obama to close the deal with voters who remain skeptical or resistant, despite the Democrats' advantages in the current political climate.
Hillary Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, confounded some of the punditocracy who suggested they were so embittered they would merely go through the motions of embracing Obama's historic candidacy.
On successive nights, they said all the right things in offering powerful endorsements of Obama.
"If someone had written a script on how everyone should play their roles, they all did pretty well in keeping to it," said Bill Carrick, a Democratic consultant. "I think the level of bitterness in the campaign was greatly exaggerated."
Carrick recalled the tumult of the 1968 convention in Chicago that ripped the party apart and hurt Hubert Humphrey's candidacy, and the deep schism of the 1980 convention in New York that damaged Jimmy Carter, the incumbent president. "We don't have any of that this time," Carrick said.
"Both Clintons did a masterful job," added Mary Beth Cahill, a Democratic strategist who managed Senator John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "They went beyond the call of duty in showing enthusiasm for him."
The challenge for Obama coming out of the convention is to project a cogent economic message that will reassure voters and ease their concerns, she said.
"He's been very methodical about getting things right and the next thing is the issue of the economy," Cahill said.
Even on the Republican side, strategist Mike Murphy described the Democrats as "pretty unified" leaving Denver. The Clintons, he said, did a great job for Obama "though the downside is they kind of overshadowed a lot of his convention."
But Murphy, who advised Republican nominee John McCain in his 2000 campaign, said "the power of the Clintons to deliver votes is overrated. For those older, blue-collar voters who have been reluctant to support him, Obama has to go out and make that sale and break them down himself."
Murphy has enraged some Democrats by suggesting the Clintons secretly support McCain over Obama.
However, Kevin Madden, another Republican consultant, said, "I think Bill and Hillary Clinton are going through the motions. The big question a lot of Democrats have is, are their hearts really in it?"
Madden cited polling showing that a quarter or more of Clinton's supporters might vote for McCain, who "is making a concerted effort to speak directly to those voters who question Obama's judgment and experience."
A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of 1,000 people conducted Wednesday night showed that 74 percent of Democratic likely voters said the convention has unified the party, compared with 14 percent who said it did not.
Eighty-four percent of Democrats said Hillary Clinton's speech will help Obama win in November. Among all voters surveyed, however, only 45 percent said they believe Obama's former rival really wants him to be elected. The margin of error in the poll was 3 percentage points.
Jim Jordan, a Democratic consultant, said the performance of the candidate's wife, Michelle Obama, on opening night may prove in hindsight to be the most important event of the gathering.
"Before the convention, she had been caricatured and attacked in an unfair way," Jordan said. "But in her speech, she came across as a warm and caring wife, mother and professional, like your next-door neighbor and someone you'd be proud to see in the White House." 