CHICAGO — All the president’s men, women, courtiers, and supporters and well-wishers of all stripes were surely attuned to his appearance Monday night at Chicago’s United Center.
It was not Joe Biden’s farewell to public life — he would continue to campaign for the Democratic ticket, he promised — but it was his sayonara song as head of that ticket. For all the pre-planned choruses of “We Love Joe!” and “Thank You, Joe!” emanating from the massive arena crowd, it was impossible not to see the man’s deep regret as he spoke, dry-throated, in anapestically rising cadences, of his achievements and unfinished ventures as president: the post-pandemic recovery act, the lessoning of Big Pharma, the infrastructure initiatives, the re-establishment of NATO solidarity, and all the rest.
“Bittersweet” doesn’t begin to do it.
Nevertheless, the torch was passed, the guard was changed, and Biden’s successor as standard-bearer, Kamala Harris, would make an appearance on stage to hug and embrace and celebrate her predecessor, along with members of Biden’s personal and official families.
The evening, first of a week’s worth to come in the 2024 Democratic National Convention, was replete with snapshots from the party scrapbook, new faces and old ones alike.
There was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — “AOC” in the vernacular — wildly applauded for the progressive congresswoman’s spicy personality and her recollections of working-class origins in New York.
There was Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic candidate from 2016, able now to voice rebukes of her conqueror (“We have him on the run now”) via hopes for the new avatar Harris (“Something is happening in America. You can feel it!”)
• That there was a palpable feeling of hope and exhilaration as this convention began was undeniable. It was obvious, too, in the daily morning breakfasts of the Tennessee delegation at Chicago’s quite posh Hyatt Regency.
On Tuesday morning, another of the Democratic Party’s new stars, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (aka “True Gretch,” after the title of her just-published memoir), came into the delegation’s meeting room to deliver an energetic pep talk. She was followed somewhat later by an energetic exhortation from New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who, after being introduced by Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen, stood atop a chair and, sans mic, declaimed his largish hopes for 2024.
The two national party figures bracketed remarks from a Tennessee hopeful, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, who hopes to win what is certainly a long-odds contest with the ultra right-wing Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Who knows? For the moment, all things seem possible for the Democrats, and their mood of optimism seems certain to crest at week’s end when Kam-ala (broad “a” in the accented first syllable) takes the stage for her official acceptance address.
Stayed tuned for next week’s cover story on the Democratic National Convention.