{"id":204,"date":"2008-08-28T21:59:51","date_gmt":"2008-08-28T21:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html"},"modified":"2008-08-28T21:59:51","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T21:59:51","slug":"barney-smith-delivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html","title":{"rendered":"Barney Smith Delivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sitting in Invesco Stadium. Just heard Al Gore&#8217;s speech.   It was actually less impactful being in this stadium than being indoors.  There&#8217;s something about the vastness of the stadium that makes it much less intimate.   The jumbotrons are father away, the sounds bit more muffled&#8230;.<br \/>\nGore&#8217;s best line: &#8220;The same policies all over again? Hey, I believe in recycling, but that&#8217;s ridiculous.&#8221;<br \/>\nOk &#8211; I have to admit when I first heard the announcer introduce a few generals, I thought, oh here we go again. Kerry did the same thing. But the sheer number of generals and admirals actually was pretty impressive.  If memory serves, Kerry tried the same thing but had to settle for some lower ranked officers to fill out the stage&#8230;.<br \/>\nHaving regular people speak is risky.  It&#8217;s one of those ideas that sounds good &#8211; you know, illustrate real problems with real people &#8211; but it usually doesn&#8217;t work because, well, speaking to a stadium is hard. But, hat&#8217;s off to the Obama scouts.   Each one of these people seem like characters &#8211; feisty and authentic. These people are better speakers than most of the politicians we&#8217;ve seen this week<br \/>\nThe only one who didn&#8217;t seem as good was this fellow Barney Smith, from Indiana.  But then we heard why he was selected: &#8220;America needs a president who will put Barney Smith ahead of Smith Barney&#8230;.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sitting in Invesco Stadium. Just heard Al Gore&#8217;s speech. It was actually less impactful being in this stadium than being indoors. There&#8217;s something about the vastness of the stadium that makes it much less intimate. The jumbotrons are father away, the sounds bit more muffled&#8230;. Gore&#8217;s best line: &#8220;The same policies all over again?&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Barney Smith Delivers - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barney Smith Delivers - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m sitting in Invesco Stadium. Just heard Al Gore&#8217;s speech. It was actually less impactful being in this stadium than being indoors. There&#8217;s something about the vastness of the stadium that makes it much less intimate. The jumbotrons are father away, the sounds bit more muffled&#8230;. Gore&#8217;s best line: &#8220;The same policies all over again?&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-28T21:59:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Barney Smith Delivers - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Barney Smith Delivers - Steven Waldman","og_description":"I&#8217;m sitting in Invesco Stadium. Just heard Al Gore&#8217;s speech. It was actually less impactful being in this stadium than being indoors. There&#8217;s something about the vastness of the stadium that makes it much less intimate. The jumbotrons are father away, the sounds bit more muffled&#8230;. Gore&#8217;s best line: &#8220;The same policies all over again?&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-08-28T21:59:51+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html","name":"Barney Smith Delivers - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-28T21:59:51+00:00","dateModified":"2008-08-28T21:59:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/08\/barney-smith-delivers.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Barney Smith Delivers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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