DNC to showcase next-gen Dems, a contrast to GOP’s 'North Korean-style wasteland': critics

On night one of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the words on a massive screen just before Vice President Kamala Harris in a surprise move walked out on stage read: “For the people, for our future.” Throughout the week the convention has showcased the strength of the Democratic bench, accordingtonumerousexperts.

Thursday’s final Democratic National Convention night will showcase some next-generation Democratic leaders, while using those speaking slots to try to protect the Senate Democratic majority, which Vice President Kamala Harris will likely need to be an effective president should she win the 2024 election just 75 days from now.

Despite complaints the evenings have been too packed with a wide, diverse swath of Democratic talent, the DNC so far this week has been heralded as one of the best in recent memory by political observers and experts and former government officials.

“Party conventions usually are scripted, ‘life-like,’ deadly bores – regardless of party,” wrote former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann, a popular MSNBC legal analyst. “Is it just me, or is this the best friggin convention we have ever seen? Inventive, inspiring, energizing.”

“It is the best convention in my lifetime and I have been to several,” responded Mike Walker, formerly an official at the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, and at FEMA.

“This DNC convention is so hopeful, energetic, positive, and forward looking. One of the best conventions I have ever seen. Dems have amazing talent,” observed Olga Lautman, an expert of authoritarianism and fascism.

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Talent is always on the menu at political conventions.

The list of speakers for Thursday night’s DNC leading up to presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s highly-anticipated speech includes two current Cabinet Secretaries, five current U.S. Senators, three current governors, and ten current and former members of Congress, according to Scripps News’s Congressional Correspondent Nathaniel Reed.

Among them are three U.S. Representatives who are running for the U.S. Senate: Elissa Slotkin (MI), Colin Allred (TX), and Rubén Gallego (AZ).

Also speaking Thursday night are: U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse (CO), Lucy McBath (GA), Katherine Clark (MA), Maxwell Frost (FL), and Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA). Two governors, Gretchen Whitmer (MI) and Roy Cooper (NC), and U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, who were on the short list for possible vice-presidential running mates, will all also be speaking Thursday night.

“The Harris-Walz campaign,” Axios on Wednesday reported, “is staring at tough odds for keeping the Senate and wants to do whatever it can to help.”

“The party needs non-incumbent nominees like Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), Ruben Gallego (Arizona) and Colin Allred (Texas) to win in November if it has any shot of keeping its Senate majority.”

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Political consultant Stuart Stevens, a Lincoln Project member and a former Republican, is praising the Democratic bench.

“I’ve spent a lot of my life sizing up political talent. The secret of success as a political consultant is working for candidates who are going to win anyway. The talent disparity between the Dem[ocratic] and R[epublican] parties is like nothing I’ve seen. What happened? R’s became more white, more evangelical, more angry when the rest of the country was becoming less white, more secular and more optimistic. The better candidates were drawn to the D party,” Stevens wrote.

“Trump exposed the Republican party as a fraud and now you have freaks like [Silicon Valley billionaires] Peter Thiel and Elon Musk picking a freak like J.D. Vance,” he added. “It takes a long time to develop talent and the R’s have squandered decades.”

Longtime reporter James Fallows, a former White House speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter, responded, writing: “Like my friend @StuartpStevens, I’ve watched political talent emerge since the 1970s.”

“The Dems have had rich next-generation rosters at several points before. (Look at their primaries 1988 & 1992. Look at the ‘Watergate babies’ who ran Congress for a couple of decades.) But current crop exceptionally talented, promising, diverse. Just think of half-dozen all-plausible VP possibilities for KH. Look at all these governors,” he noted.

“The Repubs have a North Korean-style wasteland of next-gen survivors. Consider: Tim Scott vs Wes Moore,” he aded, referring to South Carolina Republican U.S. Senator Scott and the Democratic governor of Maryland, Wes Moore.

He also set up comparisons between South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem vs. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and Republican former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy vs. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, all rumored to have been on VP short lists.

Trump running mate U.S. Senator JD Vance vs. Harris running mate Governor Tim Walz.

House Republican Caucus Chair, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY) vs. U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI).

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis vs. California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, both considered possible presidential candidates.

“Crab-style, they’ll all scramble up to say they never really believed in Trump once the air finally goes out of him,” Fallows wrote. “But it’s been like one of those fires that removes all the substantial tree growth from a forest. Will take a long time to recover.”

“Maybe the last time there was a gap like this was right after the Civil War,” he observed.

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