Vilsack
Yikes. I’m watching Tom Vilsack giving a talk at a meeting of the Florida Democratic Party on C-SPAN. Apparently Tom was left by his birth mother at a Catholic orphanage in Pennsylvania. I didn’t know this.
Anyhow, he opened his speech by talking about this, but he told it with no feeling and mostly just used the story to suggest that (even though he doesn’t know his mother) she left him at an orphanage because she believed in the American Dream, which he then contrasted with today, where thanks to the Bush Administration blah blah blah people don’t believe in the American Dream. Very strange rhetorical strategy, and he executed the strategy clumsily. Also, he never smiles.
Not very impressive — he couldn’t hold a candle to Evan Bayh in a debate.
Addendum
Good Lord! Also, Vilsack’s adoptive mom was an alcoholic and drug addict and attempted suicide several times. Oh, and she was jailed and his adoptive parents separated. He’s told a lot of these sad stories during his speech. He seems to earnestly tear up, but his voice stays low and doesn’t swell in the right way as he gets to the point of the story. Well — he certainly does have a rags to riches story!