Well, wasn't Hillary's Speech a real stemwinder!  And how about Brian Schweitzer?  Two very different people, two very different speeches, both with the same cause: Get Obama In.

The two speakers couldn't be any more different.  Hillary Clinton comes from a life of politics, Brian Schweitzer is holding his first elective office.  One is urban and urbane, the other is rural and "down home".

I went to college out in South Dakota, and listening to Brian was like sitting down for a cup of coffee in Phillip with the ranchers I came to know and admire.  There's not much artifice to the folks out "west river" in the Dakotas.  What you see is pretty much what they are.  If they think something is stupid they're going to say it's stupid.  Usually they'll say it's stupid in a way that you'll know that they think it's really stupid.  If they believe in something, they'll fight for it 'til their last breath.  The core of Brian's speech was one of being on the ground with regular Americans...a person who has not only seen, but experienced, the mess that the last four years has gotten us in to.  Brian sees Barack as a worker who is going to work to fix things, and fix them with concrete plans and not just trickle-down solutions from the top.  (I'd really like to here what Brian says about "trickle down"...)

Hillary, on the other hand, is the polished voice of a career politician.  Some people blanch at that phrase: "Career Politician".   In my software business I like professionals.  I like "career programmers".  Why is it that we accept professionalism in everything but politics?  But I digress...

Her speech had the feel of one that had been crafted for one purpose only: get her supporters into the program, and make them feel good about going there.  She pulled out every trick in the speaker's book: volume modulation, speaking in couplets (On McCain: "More high gas prices …and less alternative energy."), and linking ideas together in sets of three.

Of all her comments, this one paragraph is the core of her speech:

"I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? 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? Were you in it for that boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?"

The cause is greater than any of us.  We have got to keep our eyes on what we stand for and what we need to accomplish.  Sure, you're disappointed that I'm not the nominee.  Sure, you think that I should have been sitting in the Vice Presidential slot.  Sure, a woman has again been beaten down.  But, guess what... those are not the things  that matter.  Getting us off of the Bush-McCain railroad track we've been on for the last eight years, that's what matters.  Getting Barack Obama into the White House, that's what matters.  Getting the Senate firmly in the hands of we Democrats, that's what matters.  Getting us out of the mess we're in...that's what matters!

I was worried going into Hillary's speech last night.  Worried that some bitterness would spill out.  It didn't happen.  I was worried that Bill would have a look on his face that said "We should have been the chosen ones."  It didn't happen.  I saw the look on Bill's face.  It was a look of pride and it was a look of determination, and it was a look of a person that agreed with what was being said and who was going to do his damndest to make Barack's election a reality.  I'm looking forward to tonight.