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What Was Up With Obama's Speech?

Over at The Plank, it sounds like Jonathan Cohn was a disappointed by the shortage of lyricism and loftiness in Obama's speech tonight. I agree, it was a little more mundane than his usual primary-night fare. I think the explanation is that it wasn't really a victory speech--it was basically his standard stump speech, which tends to wander a little more, and weave in more specifics, than his victory (or, less often, concession) speeches.

That brings me to a second point I was about to make--which is that, like Isaac, I was initially surprised the Obama campaign chose to bump Hillary off the airwaves mid-speech. But, as it happens, Hillary was doing the same thing he was--she wasn't making a concession speech, but, from what I could tell, her usual stump speech. If both candidates are making stump speeches, which tend to run longer and get more into the weeds than the typical primary-night stuff, I think it's only fair that the winner gets his broadcast in it's entirety.

Update: Mike weighs in on the same.

--Noam Scheiber