{"id":1475,"date":"2008-08-29T16:32:41","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T16:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/29\/at-last-our-who\/"},"modified":"2008-08-29T16:32:41","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T16:32:41","slug":"at-last-our-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/29\/at-last-our-who\/","title":{"rendered":"SPEECH OF A LIFETIME– Oh – and that Sarah person"},"content":{"rendered":"

At
\nlast.   Our whole day had been built around this.  Obama accepts
\nthe nomination with the highest TV ratings of
\nany acceptance speech<\/a> in modern US history, according to the Hollywood
\nReporter:<\/p>\n

Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech for the Democratic
\npresidential nomination Thursday night was seen by 38.4 million viewers — 57%
\nmore than watched John Kerry four years ago — and was the most-watched
\nconvention speech ever.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thursday
\nnight’s viewership set a new record for national convention coverage, according
\nto Nielsen Media Research. Naturally, it’s also the largest number since the
\nconvention began, up 42% from Hillary Clinton’s
\nspeech<\/a> on Day 2.<\/em><\/p>\n

Obama’s
\nspeech was seen by more U.S. viewers than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony
\n(34.2 million). <\/em><\/p>\n

It was a remarkable speech in a spectacular setting.  You either watched it or
\nyou didn’t – watch it here.  It’s actually worth more than one viewing for
\nnot only the substance but also the environment and symbolism.  Watch it —
\nit’s pretty amazing.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Here’s
\na
\ntranscript, too.<\/a><\/p>\n

I
\nwaited until today to write this because I felt so much emotion last night that
\nI thought I should let it all sink in.   I’ve seen so many acceptance
\nspeeches, and my sense of Obama’s role is so deep that I didn’t think I had
\nmuch new to offer.  It doesn’t seem to be wearing off though — not that
\nI’m alone.  MSNBC super-conservative and often inflamatory and somewhat
\ncruel Joe
\nScarborough <\/a>was still rhapsodizing when I woke up.  I think any aware
\nAmerican, anyone who’s lived through a substantial portion of our modern racial
\nhistory, anyone with any desire for a better, more just country — any of us —
\ncould not have watched what happened last night and remained
\ndispassionate.  Tweets all night, and not just from those in the arena
\nkept saying "Tears everywhere"  "Tearing up"
\n"Didn’t think I’d cry but…"  I was fine until the family
\nwalked out to the center of the stadium holding hands.  Then I just
\ndisolved.<\/p>\n

Beyond
\nthe moving historic moment, and the incredible tableau of two decent committed
\nfamilies who have made public service a life-time commitment, who are the kinds
\nof people who seem to manifest what Americans used to think of as "real
\nAmerican" character, the substance was also inspiring, at least for
\nme.  You can read blogger comments on the wonderful CSPAN Hub<\/a> — assembled by a team that
\nincludes that very smart woman you keep seeing on CSPAN, Leslie Bradshaw<\/a>.  This post of
\nhers will give you an idea<\/a> of
\nwhat it took to run the Hub operation – so valuable to so many bloggers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Palin_3\"<\/a>
\nFrom there, of
\ncourse, we moved to Sarah Palin<\/a>. I
\nthought it was smart but very unsportsmanlike of McCain to name her today, but
\nthere ain’t gonna be no playing nice in this campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, people who
\nknow more about her will let us all know who she really is.  But,
\nlistening to her, all I could think of was some of my mom’s slightly goofy but
\nsmart and always fun friends.  I think it would be a mistake to
\nunderstimate her.  She’s nervy enough to get herself from small-town mayor
\nto governor and to be raising five children, one with special needs and another
\non his way to Iraq.  (Take a look at what Morra Aarons<\/a>-Mele<\/a> has written about
\nthis in the HuffPost<\/a>: a caution to us all.)  Palin is also, by the way, married
\nto an Alaskan fisherman who for all we know may be a cool, Deadliest
\nCatch<\/a> kind of guy and another kind of asset.  This is uncharted territory and we all better hold
\non to our hats – or at least our blackberrys.  I’m betting that among
\nthese four candidates we won’t wake up many mornings to a day without some kind
\nof electoral surprise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At last.   Our whole day had been built around this.  Obama accepts the nomination with the highest TV ratings of any acceptance speech in modern US history, according to the Hollywood Reporter: Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night was seen by 38.4 million viewers — 57% more than watched … Continue reading SPEECH OF A LIFETIME– Oh – and that Sarah person<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,7,9,97],"tags":[1255,279,1282,1283,710,1284,92,259,99],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-life","category-politics","category-television","tag-acceptance-speech","tag-barack-obama","tag-cspan","tag-hollywood-reporter","tag-mccain","tag-morra-aarons-mele","tag-obama","tag-ratings","tag-sarah-palin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-nN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}