Speech

The Democratic National Convention will again move to an outdoor football stadium on its final day, providing for a much larger venue for Barack Obama to accept his party's nomination for a second term as president. Party officials on Tuesday announced more details about the September convention in Charlotte, N.C., including shortening the gathering to three days and kicking off the festivities on Labor Day with what's being called a day of organizing at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The Big Dog beat the guy in the Big Chair. And a guy talking to an empty chair beat the guy trying to win the White House. Asked to name the highlights of  the Democratic and Republican national conventions, most people cited a pair speakers who won't be on any ballot this November: Bill Clinton and Clint Eastwood. Perhaps it's because both, in their own way, winged it. Clinton, who delivered a lengthy, sprawling, often-extemporaneous endorsement of President Obama, was cited as the highlight of the Democratic gathering by nearly three in 10 of those surveyed, according to poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center . PHOTOS: Best of the Republican, Democratic conventions President Obama's speech - which capped Thursday final session - was cited as a highlight by 16% of those surveyed, followed closely by his wife, Michelle.

Rick Santorum renewed his criticism of John F. Kennedy on Thursday night for saying during his 1960 campaign for the presidency that he believed “in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” “That's not America,” the Republican presidential hopeful told a crowd at an Alabama dinner banquet. “That's France. That's a naked public square where people of faith are out of bounds.” Santorum's remarks came as he and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich battle for the support of conservative evangelical Christians in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries Tuesday.

TAMPA, Fla. - Mitt Romney's acceptance speech Thursday night has been described, aptly, as the biggest of his life. It's the Republican presidential nominee's single best chance, between now and the election, to speak directly, unfiltered and at considerable length to an audience of tens of millions of voters. But do acceptance speeches matter? More to the point, do they win presidential elections? “I can't remember one that did,” said veteran political writer Jack Germond, who covered his first convention in 1960, when the Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy.

On a day when President Obama explicitly sounded the alarm on rising income inequality in the United States in a speech in Kansas, protesters in Washington chose action over rhetoric, disrupting a fundraiser for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. As part of the “Take Back the Capitol” movement that has descended on the capital this week, protesters stood outside a tony D.C. restaurant, giving the business to lawmakers and lobbyists who tried to enter and chanting “We are the 99%!

President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, condemning the protests that have swept across the Middle East and the attack that caused the death of a U.S. ambassador in Libya. "The attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America. They are also an assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded,” Obama said. He also addressed the controversial anti-Islamic movie trailer for the film “Innocence of Muslims,” which played a role in many of the recent protests in the region.

washington -- Former First Lady Laura Bush on Monday expressed support for President Obama's decision to speak to the nation's schoolchildren, saying it was "really important for everyone to respect the president of the United States." In an interview with CNN, Bush, a former schoolteacher, said: "There's a place for the president of the United States to . . . encourage schoolchildren" to stay in school. Parents and others, she said, need to send that message as well. Bush also praised Obama's performance, saying that "he's tackled a lot to start with, and that's made it difficult."

Re "A lesson in expression," editorial, Feb. 27 I teach political science at Riverside Community College. There are students who would like to forgo the research it takes to understand an issue and instead depend on information they learned at Bible study. This is unacceptable. I have no problem with a student expressing his or her opinion in a class discussion. But if the assignment is to write an informative speech about gay marriage, and the student only factors in a religious argument, he would probably end up with an F in my classroom.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has lost his first scrape with the new Congress, and it hasn't even been sworn in yet. In a sign of the altered political map, Calderon postponed his annual state of the nation speech scheduled next week after lawmakers from the newly dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, objected to the timing. Calderon, a conservative, had planned to deliver his address from the National Palace on Tuesday morning before a select audience; his office was already sending out invitations.

In a part homecoming and part farewell, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is expected to return to the House chamber for President Obama's State of the Union speech as she bows out of public life to focus on her recovery. The Arizona Democrat has left an indelible mark on Congress during her three terms in office, and Tuesday's appearance is expected to be an emotional one. After Giffords she was shot in the head while meeting with constituents a year ago in her Tucson district, calls for political civility prompted lawmakers to cross party lines to sit beside one another during the president's speech.