News Analysis - Sen Elizabeth Warren Delivers Speech at Democratic Convention

Senator Elizabeth Warren addressed the Democratic National Convention this evening in Philadelphia. How did she do? Now, by most conventional measures, Elizabeth Warren is a great speaker and gave a perfectly fine speech tonight to Democrats, progressives, liberals who are ideologically in line with her. She's a forceful speaker, dynamic. She rose to fame during her initial Senate campaign by some of her speeches she gave in small private fundraisers where she was just caught accidentally on cell phone video. So how did she do tonight? I thought she was a bit subdued. And when people are ranking and talking about the speakers from Monday night, the first night of the Democratic Convention, she wasn't in the top three. Now, there was a lot of competition. Michelle Obama gave a great speech, Senator Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders. So I would put not that it's ranked this way by most observers, but I do think that Senator Warren did not distinguish herself. Her speech was a bit generic and she lacked the passion. There are other times when you hear her speaking, talking about economic populism in a way that is so forceful, so clear, so dynamic, she cuts through the clutter. I didn't hear that tonight. There were a few odd things about her speech, too. She gave as an example of how strong how good things are by how strong the stock market is. Now, most liberal and progressive economists and people who talk about economic matters typically say that's not a relevant indicator at all. An economy can be doing horribly, the stock market doing well. So I thought there were a couple of things that were just a bit off. She does have good energy, good focus, clear, good gestures. She has good passion, but by her standards, a little bit lower than normal. And certainly by the standards of the other speakers tonight, a little bit lower. She certainly didn't do anything to harm her reputation at all. But this is not a speech that people are going to be talking about years from now, weeks from now, or even days from now. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me.