The Harris-Walz campaign has been using the slogan “FORWARD” as part of their marketing (thanks to Shepard Fairey plagiarizing his own work). Night Two at the DNC did not feel like a “FORWARD” moment. With Barack and Michelle Obama on the stage, it felt like we were going backward in time, not forward.

Look, the Obama power duo are still undeniably popular within the Democrat party. And they tend to suck all the air out of the room when they are present. After the Night One scheduling and timing debacle that shoved Joe Biden all the way out of East Coast primetime viewing, the orders from the DNC went out to all the scheduled speakers – do not go over your time limit, and keep moving. After all, such disrespect to the Obamas would NOT be tolerated.

But the night was oddly constructed. Neither Kamala Harris or Tim Walz was present – in fact, they were off in Wisconsin doing a rally. During the convention, while Kamala’s own husband was scheduled to speak. And of course, we know that Joe Biden has now gone semi-permanently out to pasture, with the Biden entourage now “vacationing” in California. There is quite a bit of tension between the powerful people right now, with Team Biden fully aware that they got a polite middle finger on Night One, and they may just be vindictive enough to deliver some payback later. And it seems that Team Harris knows that the old man is mad at them, and at the Obamas.

NEW: VP Kamala Harris held an event 90 miles away from the DNC on the night the party’s two most popular figures, Barack and Michelle Obama, campaigned on her behalf – and a source familiar with DNC planning tells FOX says that choice was made out of sensitivity and respect to…

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 21, 2024

The full post reads:

NEW: VP Kamala Harris held an event 90 miles away from the DNC on the night the party’s two most popular figures, Barack and Michelle Obama, campaigned on her behalf – and a source familiar with DNC planning tells FOX says that choice was made out of sensitivity and respect to Joe Biden.

“Obamas are still not on the White House good side,” a source familiar with the situation said. “It would not be helpful to their relationships.”

Fox is told this plan came together to avoid the optics of Harris — still serving as Biden’s Vice President — appearing alongside one of the figures he views as responsible for driving the end of his reelection bid — at the very convention which was supposed to be his only weeks ago.

“We are in tricky territory,” this source said.

Remember, just TWO MONTHS AGO, Barack Obama held a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser WITH JOE BIDEN, and when video emerged of him leading old Joe by the hand off the stage, the White House screamed about “misinformation” and called actual video clips “cheap fakes.” And then Obama gave the green light after the debate to take Joe out, via the George Clooney op-ed and the reported coordination with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to lean on Biden to drop out. Team Biden knows that Obama’s fingerprints are all over what happened. Night One was Joe Biden’s political funeral, with the eulogy delivered by him. Night Two? Biden barely gets a mention. AND HE’S STILL TECHNICALLY PRESIDENT! It’s like he’s a phantom figure, a specter of imagination that only exists when he needs to exist.

But other than Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s speech (which was decent, but knowing that this guy wrecked his first marriage by getting the nanny pregnant – and no one is willing to talk about what happened after that, so much for “shouting your abortion,” right? – kind of takes the shine off the “meet-cute” story of him and Kamala Harris), the night belonged to Michelle and Barack Obama.

Well, truthfully, the night belonged to Michelle Obama. The applause she got, in my estimation, was more than her husband got, more than Joe Biden got, more than Hillary Clinton got, and certainly more than Kamala Harris got on Night One. The DNC crowd absolutely went wild for Michelle. In fact, if she had gotten up there at the beginning of her speech and said, “You know, I know you just did the official roll call and have officially selected a nominee, but I would be proud to be the Democratic party’s nominee for president,” you know that DNC chair Jaime Harrison would have bum-rushed the stage and instantly held another roll call to shove Kamala Harris right off the ticket. THAT is the level of enthusiasm that Michelle Obama commands, which is why Democrats have been wishcasting her into the nomination for years at this point.

But it is clear that Michelle has no designs on the presidency. She enjoys her Very Rich Life™ too much to go back to politics. She earns hundreds of thousands of dollars for just one speech. Her books are bestsellers. She has the respect and adoration of millions. Who needs the presidency? But she did give a stemwinder of a speech for Kamala Harris, directly tying Barack and Kamala together with “hope.” If you had played a drinking game with Michelle Obama and taken a shot every time she said “hope” in her speech? Six shots in twenty minutes. Not even Ted Kennedy’s liver could do that.

Her speech opened this way:

Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?

You know we’re feeling it here in this arena, but spreading all across this country we love. A familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long.

You know what I’m talking about?

It’s the contagious power of hope!

The anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day.

The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division, and hate that have consumed us and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation-the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for.

America, hope is making a comeback!

Uhhhh… remember when I said that Joe Biden is no more to the Democrats? Michelle Obama just proved that. Not once does she mention Joe in her speech. In fact, she’s speaking as if the Biden administration never happened at all. Who has been president the last three-plus years? It wasn’t Donald Trump! “Hope is making a comeback,” Michelle proclaims, not-so-subtly trashing the entire Biden presidency to a room full of Democrats. Jill Biden must be furious right about now.

Michelle did her job and gave her speech admirably, talking up “her girl Kamala” as the next great “hope” of the Democrat party. If Michelle Obama hit the campaign trail for Kamala, she would be a formidable force. But, her speech is quite clearly a “one and done” deal. She has her Very Rich Life™ to get back to, and giving free campaign rally speeches is not on her agenda.

And then Michelle turned the podium over to Barack Obama. Michelle’s speech clocked in at just under 20 minutes, when you account for the applause. Barack Obama’s speech clocked in, accounting for applause lines, at around 33 minutes. Michelle’s speech was snappy and forceful, pushing people to get out and campaign. Barack’s speech… turned into a lecture. While Michelle did chastise the crowd about taking the high ground and going out to “DO SOMETHING!” (obviously everyone else, not her), the former president turned into Pastor Obama. We’ve been here before. We have all disappointed Barack Obama, and must repent of our sins, confess our iniquities, tithe to the Democrat church, and then go dutifully act out our penance by campaigning and voting for him Kamala Harris.

At least Barack Obama had enough decency to damn Joe Biden with faint praise.

BARACK OBAMA: "My first big decision as your nominee turned out to be one of my best. And that was asking Joe Biden to serve by my side as vice president." pic.twitter.com/bcadWy45Cw

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 21, 2024

John Podhoretz had the right level of literate snark for this moment.

"And Brutus is an honorable man"

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) August 21, 2024

Obama decried the “cult of personality” in an obvious swipe at Donald Trump. Did… did he forget that he is BARACK OBAMA? He is the OG Cult Of Personality! But that wasn’t all he had to say about where politics has gone since he left the presidency.

When it was former President Obama’s turn, he lamented the ugliness of modern American politics before mocking Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes” by gesturing with his hands to signify a small length.

Obama moaned that our politics had turned citizens against each other, before accusing Republicans of being insular, slacked-jawed hatemongers.

As George Will once wrote, Obama is “a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.”

But perhaps the most confusing aspect of the night was Obama’s call for a return to decency. The former president, in fact, argued that America needed “a new chapter, a better story,” even though his own vice president, Joe Biden, has been in office for nearly four years.

Come to think of it, Kamala Harris has also been in office for nearly four years. What has either done to make our politics less divisive or our lives more joyful?

Like Barack Obama has ever really cared about Joe Biden. Joe was a token white man pick for Obama, and he has never stuck his neck out for the elderly man since. He didn’t endorse Joe until the 2020 primary was a foregone conclusion, and it’s been clear for a very long time that Joe needed Barack far more than Barack needed Joe.

Obama went on to play up the “hope” angle by decrying people who don’t trust government.

Obama: "The other side knows it's easier to play on people's fears and cynicism. They will tell you that government is inherently corrupt."

Government as we know is famously not corrupt.
pic.twitter.com/M52z67qshD

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 21, 2024

And naturally, he said that just hours before the jobs numbers got a MASSIVE revision… downward.

The U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported, the government said Wednesday. The revised total adds to evidence that the job market has been steadily slowing and likely reinforces the Federal Reserve’s plan to start cutting interest rates soon.

The Labor Department estimated that job growth averaged 174,000 a month in the year that ended in March — a drop of 68,000 a month from the 242,000 that were initially reported. The revisions released Wednesday were preliminary, with final numbers to be issued in February next year.

The downgraded estimate follows a jobs report for July that was much worse than expected, leading many economists to suggest that the Fed had waited too long to begin cutting interest rates to support the economy. The unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight month, to a still-low 4.3%, and employers added just 114,000 jobs.

And how nice that we won’t have the REAL and FINAL numbers until FEBRUARY 2025. But you know, government is ALWAYS virtuous and NEVER corrupt! *cough*

Like I said earlier, Barack’s speech was longer than Michelle’s speech by about 13 minutes, and while it didn’t come close to the FIFTY MINUTES that Joe Biden used on Monday night, it was definitely dragging at the end. Will Barack Obama appear on the campaign trail for Kamala Harris? If he does, it will likely be at a private fundraising event, not at the rallies with the peasants. That part of the Obamas’ political life is over. They have done their part now – they’ve endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, kicked Joe Biden squarely in the ass and out the door, and gotten the praise and adulation of the press. Except now, everything is up to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

MUST WATCH: @ScottJenningsKY points out how Democrats are trying to hide Kamala Harris's record as the sitting Vice President and Biden’s chief right-hand woman:

"[Kamala Harris] is in the White House right now. Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of the last 16… pic.twitter.com/HQCzVanJLn

— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) August 21, 2024

The full post reads:

MUST WATCH: @ScottJenningsKY points out how Democrats are trying to hide Kamala Harris’s record as the sitting Vice President and Biden’s chief right-hand woman:

“[Kamala Harris] is in the White House right now. Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of the last 16 years, and for all of the talk about division… somehow, it’s still all Trump’s fault, and somehow, she hasn’t been at the center of it. To me, that is the glaring hole in this campaign that hasn’t yet been solved at the convention. How do you explain all of the problems that will be solved by the person who is currently in there for the last 3.5 years and who is supposed to be already working on solving it?”

The Obama afterglow isn’t going to carry on for the next two nights. It might have been fun for Democrats to indulge in the nostalgia of Barack Obama and his presidency, and the fantasy of a Michelle Obama candidacy, but reality is about to set in with Tim Walz tonight, and Kamala Harris tomorrow. And reality might be a bitter pill to swallow after so much “hope.”

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click