Hardblogger.MSNBC.COM Click here for recent postings

• July 27, 2004 | 11:05 p.m. ET

Anticipation builds (Joe Scarborough) The crowds around MSNBC's set at Faneuil Hall continue to grow as Democrats await the arrival of their favorite son, John Kerry.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Howard Dean are the warm up acts for the only speech that matters. When John Kerry takes the stage he will face an uncertain electorate who is evenly divided between the Republican and Democratic candidates. A Washington Post poll released today may spell trouble for Mr. Kerry. The latest numbers show the President's approval ratings are shooting up and an overwhelming majority of Americans trust George W. Bush to lead America in the War on Terror.

But that will surely change. Polls will push Kerry's way, barring a total collapse of Kerry on Thursday night. Democrats are quietly telling me their candidate must leave Boston with a 5-to-10 point lead. Failing that the Olympics and the GOP convention in New York may feed into a long fall campaign.

John Kerry understands the challenge before him. He must energize his base without alienating middle America. He must show Americans a strong leader while assuring Dean Democrats he will get U.S. troops out of Iraq. And he must portray himself as a family man, while keeping his wife's public persona on a very short leash. And lots of luck on that last challenge, Senator Kerry.

(Click to read Joe's last post.)

• July 27, 2004 | 9:15 p.m. ET

Ted and Ben's Excellent Adventure (Keith Olbermann) From the anchor desk at MSNBC -- of Ted and Ben...
Quite a contrast tonight to Ted Kennedy's role in the 1980 Democratic Convention in New York.
It's hard to believe that this most strident yet of this week's Democratic flag-wavers is the same man who tried to vanquish a sitting president from within his own party nearly a quarter century ago.
How long he stood before saying anything into the microphone at Faneuil Hall in Boston on November 7, 1979. I remember feeling it then, and felt it again looking at the tape the other night: no matter what he might've felt, he hesitated.
And he lost.
Not tonight -- although not racing through his text the way Bill Clinton did last night, he still moved rapidly, hesitating not a whit. But what he won is up for debate.
The message from John Kerry was supposedly "be positive, don't attack." Yet the Senator seemed to be contrasting our own American Revolution, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of apartheid, and the revolt at Tiananmen Square, with the Bush presidency. He linked George Bush and King George III. He turned FDR's "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," into "the only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush."
When does the no-attack rule go into effect?
And yes, you did hear correctly. Senator Kennedy referred to the "shirt heard round the world."
     ---
To reprise a theme from last night.
Once again, nice touch out of Fox News.
Maybe Bill O'Reilly feels the obsessive need to talk over the first fifteen minutes of the convention every night because he's trying to  pave over his disastrous years as a local Boston news anchor. Regardless, we know what we're getting from him.
My beef tonight is with his first two guests: Ben Affleck and Jerry Brown.
I know that if neither of them agreed to be the sparring partner for O'Reilly as he drowned Kennedy out, somebody else would. And that they think they're somehow bringing the argument on to foreign territory, and perhaps win a few converts.
But therein lies the crux of the conundrum that is the Democrats' contention that FNC is not just biased, but also an extra little devil head growing off the body of the Republican Party. Every Democrat who agrees to appear on that network helps support it, helps it argue (falsely or accurately) that it is not partisan.
And, tonight, every Democrat who went on live with O'Reilly instead of saying "I'm not helping you blow off Kennedy" showed he'd rather hear himself talk.

• July 27, 2004 | 7:50 p.m. ET

Today's challenge: find the spin-meisters (Andrea Mitchell) That's a challenge? Well, yes, when you want to capture the strategy behind their schpiels. So we had to get into the DNC boiler room and find the strategy guys.

Boy, were they on message! Their mantra is taken from Bill Clinton's songbook, "strength and wisdom are not opposing values." So what does that really mean?

Joe Biden says it's all about getting people to think that Kerry is not just smart, but also strong. Did I mention STRONG? Is there a chance anyone might miss the message? Biden also says Clinton's advice to Team Kerry is that Americans will vote for someone who's strong but wrong over someone who's weak but right. huh? To them that means Kerry has to prove he's not only smart but tough enough to be commander-in-chief.

To back up the message of the day the campaign sent surrogates out to do spin all of us and had Kerry in Norfolk once again surrounded by his Vietnam crewmates. Most important, Kerry's call to extend the 9/11 commission. Maybe the ticket should be Kean/Hamilton, not Kerry/Edwards?

About tonight’s  keynoter, Barack Obama. A Democratic source tells me he was picked at the time the party thought he needed help because his opponent would be Mike Ditka. Whoops, that didn’t happen, but Obama is a rising star and has the stage to launch what could be a national career. Will this be a Mario Cuomo or Barbara Jordan moment? Or will this be one of those forgettable moments? How much did the slot do for Harold Ford Junior four years ago? (actually, a lot)

So far today, we've filed for MSNBC, MSNBC.com, Nightly News, our new mobile phone uplink and now onto Hardball. We have the platforms -- now to find the story!

• July 27, 2004 | 7:30 p.m. ET

From the Hardblogger mail bag:

On the Ben Affleck interview (  Click here to watch a video of Ben's impression of Chris |   More video of Affleck)

Ben Affleck was grand! First time I've seen Chris shut up! Give Ben a job! —Robbie, Atlanta

Jeez, just saw Ben Affleck on Hardball and —Ben, if you ever get to see this—  I apologize for all the negative comments I've made about you in the past. I'd much rather meet you as a "regular guy" to hear more political observations than glom onto you as an actor (which, I'm sorry, wouldn't ever happen in this lifetime). But, wow, great interview. Very academic, thought out, insightful, not inane underinformed babble like we see from so many others involved in the entertainment business. —Anonymous

(Click here to read more Hardblogger e-mails.)

• July 27, 2004 | 6:04 p.m. ET

Meanwhile, on Planet Dean ... (Keith Olbermann) By itself, Secaucus, New Jersey, is enough to make you start thinking of parallel universes.

But to be sitting here talking about how much "lead time" Howard Dean's speech tonight "deserves" (should we do a feature, should Joe Trippi be on right before his speech, should we just play 45 minutes of 'the scream', etc), is a direct portal to another dimension.

In it, of course, Dean isn't speaking tonight. He goes Thursday, just like all other nominees. And we're trying to calculate if his rise from obscurity to the presidential nomination resembles more that of Jimmy Carter or Woodrow Wilson. And we're debating whether or not his Vice Presidential pick was the right call, and how the Dems can get away with having Ted Kennedy but not the also-ran John Kerry speak at a convention in Boston.

I first heard Dean speak only because I'd thrown out my back and the TV remote was too far to reach. He was on C-SPAN, following my favorite reality program (Prime Minister's Question Time). By the time I'd edged over to the remote, he'd hooked me: A passionate guy with a non-politician's delivery and enough facts on hand to suggest he had the rest of them nearby. I even devoted one of my ABC Radio commentaries to him (and how he would win the nomination). That was in late February of '03.

I like to think he screwed it up, not me.

Poor Dean. The night of his 'scream' in Iowa, none of us, but I mean none of us, had an inkling that there were any audio shortcomings in that room. The story, to paraphrase Churchill, spread around the world while the acoustical truth was still trying to get its pants on. How fitting that his candidacy (or at least its demise) is supposedly defined by that moment of self-destruction. It covers up his mishandling of the unsealing of his Vermont records, and the poorly-handled staffing changes, and the fight with the Republican heckler, and the resurrected tapes of his criticism of the nature of the (oops) Iowa Caucuses.

So in that other universe we have 48 hours more to figure out how much "play" Dean gets.

And I'm considerably thinner.

Then I snap back to the current dimension and find myself wondering how many delegates and reporters at the Fleet Center are secretly thinking, somewhere way in the back of their minds, "is he going to scream again?"

• July 27, 2004 | 5:23 p.m. ET

(Dominic Bellone Hardball Producer & Briefing Editor)

Have you memorized the sked yet? Chris and company 6 p.m.-Midnight ET, and then Ron Reagan and Joe Scarborough until 2 a.m. ET with "Convention After Hours. 

So what's for tonight? The brass at MSNBC have told us that this is the "fun" night. (Fun for who, I ask?  Just kidding. It's tough, demanding work, but also quite satisfying). Speaking of which, did you notice last night how pumped up Chris was? He's having so much fun it ought to be illegal.  The audience we have at Faneuil Hall is really psyched as well. But that's the kind of "get down in the dirt and muck it up" kind of show you expect from us. Why would you want to tune to the other boring guys elsewhere on the dial? On deck tonight:.

• The 6-8 pm ET panel so far is Dee Dee, Ron (who has to jet at 6:30 ET to prep for his big prime-time speech Tueday night) and David Gergen. We'll talk to Kerry foreign policy advisor Richard Holbrooke & Human Rights activist Bianca Jagger. 
• In the 7pm ET hour we've got actor & native Bostonian Ben Affleck, Pennsylvania  Gov. Ed Rendell (who was with THK when she made the "shove it" comment on Sunday night), and several of Kerry's Vietnam swift boat comrades. 
• Later,  House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt joins us. We'll also bring you all the big name speeches scheduled for Tuesday: Sen. Ted Kennedy, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Barak Obama and, of course, Ron Reagan (who'll give us an exclusive interview afterwords.) Plus Howard Dean and many others.

We'll have a number of fun surprises, of course, so pop the popcorn and strap yourself in!

• July 27, 2004 | 4:17 p.m. ET

'Speaking on a curve' (Willie Brown)  I was just accosted by David Shuster in the hallway. But glad to see he knows his ties.

Watching the Clintons last night, I couldn’t help thinking that they deliberately toned it down a bit for the sake of ensuring that Kerry is the main event. I mean, when Tina Turner opens for the Rolling Stones, it’s different than when someone opens for Tina Turner. They were speaking on a curve, a Bell curve.

That’s smart, because you have to take every opportunity at a convention like this to make sure you don’t overshadow Kerry. I think Hillary and Sir William played their roles well.

Of course, you also had to make sure that Al Gore did no harm, and I don’t think he did. Al was as good as I’ve ever seen him, partly because they kept him short.

And then, of course, Saint Jimmy, he was at his peanut best. But it is always a risk with high-profile people on what they’ll say. I don’t think they can ask people at that level to come and then vet their speech. All they can really do is say, ‘here’s the tone we’re hoping to keep,’ and hope for the best. And I think that’s pretty much what they got on Day 1.

• July 27, 2004 | 3:39. pm. ET

Talking ties with Willie 'Brioni' Brown (David Shuster) This afternoon I walked over to the elevator that goes up to our MSNBC workspace at Faneuil Hall and found Willie Brown waiting for it as well.

The former San Francisco mayor is one of the best dressed politicians around, and I couldn't help but chuckle as I overheard him telling an aide about why some shirt and tie combinations work on TV and others don't. Then, Brown said he was thinking of wearing a "double breasted" suit Wednesday.

That was enough for me. So, I butted into the conversation, smiled, and said "it must be difficult to pack for a trip like this when you have a large closet full of nice clothes?"

"Yes, it's very difficult," Brown said. "I always overpack and bring 20 ties." (Good grief!!! Talk about feeling sartorially inferior.  I mean, I do pretty well with my Hickey Freeman shirts and Zegna ties. But 20 ties for one week? If I bring 10, that's a lot.)

Anyway, I asked Mayor Brown which ties he prefers. He said "Brioni."

Brioni is a hand made Italian line.The ties start at $150 each. So, let's see, 20 x 150 = $3,000! If an airline loses Mr. Brown's luggage on the way back from the convention, they will lose $3,000 worth of ties. Yikes.

• July 27, 2004 | 1:24 p.m. ET

A Boston hangover? (Pat Buchanan) The morning after first night, the Kerry camp had to be felling a sense of deep disappointment. Network ratings for the convention are down. The ratio of political junkies watching, to undecided voters, is higher than ever. 

While Hillary's speech was high-pitched to the point of becoming a rant — resurrecting the old headband radical-feminist image — Bill Clinton's corker, in prime time, was the high point. 

However, Drudge, with multi-millions of hits, is highlighting, and has been for twelve hours, Teresa Kerry's private views on Teddy and the party. The "shove it" quote is the talk of the town. Teresa telling Katie Couric she was misquoted by that fellow who asked her what she meant by "un-American" is non-credible, when one views the videotape. Get the country laughing at you, and you are in serious trouble. 

Grimmest news of all is the front-page poll in the Washington Post which shows John Kerry fading in five critical categories of leadership against Bush, and surrendering his lead. He has been fading for a month. To Kerry's folks, this must be like having your internist tell you there is something suspicious on the x-ray.

What does this tell us?  The surrogates can't carry it for Kerry.  He will have to deliver himself on Thursday night.  If he does not, he faces, almost defenseless, the guns of August, when Bush-Cheney expend the scores of millions in their campaign arsenal, and will use it on ads hammering Kerry-Edwards for a month in every city and state the ticket visits, while Kerry-Edwards cannot use campaign funds to reply.

We could have a replay of 1988 when Michael Dukakis went to the Berkshires in August, 17 points ahead, and came home Labor Day eight points behind. On Election Day, he was eight points behind. Conclusion: Kerry could lose this in August. 

He needs to come out of Boston with a cushion, and the only thing that can deliver that is a bell-ringer on Thursday night. He should be in the speaker's trailer, two hours a day, practicing on the TelePrompTer.

(Read Pat Buchanan's previous post)

• July 27, 2004 | 12:39 a.m. ET

(David Shuster) "I say Bunker, you say Breeds?"

This morning I did a report from the lovely Bunker Hill memorial. On this site in June 1775, colonialists showed their courage and determination against the British forces It is here that General Israel Putnam told the rag-tag Americans, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."

Anyway, the DNC had a Navy band and a few speeches as part of a "Salute to Those Who Have Served."  It was a not so subtle way to remind everybody that John Kerry saw action in Vietnam. Had we forgotten? Most folks here in Boston already knew that. Maybe that explains why only half of the seats at the event were occupied. Or maybe a 10:30 am "ceremony" is not such a good idea after a night of convention partying?

The most interesting factoid this morning came from a local who reminded me this isn't "Bunker Hill" it's actually "Breed's Hill."  Most of the fighting on "Bunker Hill" actually took place on Breed's Hill.  Whatever. John Kerry still served in Vietnam.

(Read David Shuster's previous post)

• July 27, 2004 | 11:56 a.m. ET

Still trying to get into Fleet Center (Joe Trippi)  Ok so maybe I am just paranoid (Joe Trippi paranoid? Never!) but its my third day in Boston and I still can’t get a credential to get into the big party at the Fleet Center!

I mean I know I wasn’t on the winning team but you would think I could at least get into the big house and wander around the nosebleed section. Nada nothing.  I can’t get a credential from the DNC, the Kerry Campaign or even my friends – that’s how hot a ticket into the place is.

So then I wander from my Hardblogger work place and plead with Slavemaster Phil (the crazed Yankee fan who is mourning three straight Red Sox victories and taking it all out on me) for a MSNBC credential and the man just looks at me and cackles.  There are no MSNBC credentials left! Hell even the bloggers have credentials... but not this one!

Still trying… more on my personal struggle to break into the Fleet Center later.

MORE FROM HARDBALL

Hardball Section Front

Gore: ‘Out-crazy the crazy’ Political odds improving for Palin? Bishop bans Kennedy from Communion Democrats face 2010 uncertainty Can the Dems keep their 60 votes? All roads lead back to Obama New information surrounding Kennedy assassination Barbour dodges Palin question Verdict is in on Burris Has Obama taken too many political risks? Hardball Section Front   Add Hardball headlines to your news reader: