Later on, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, now host of her own show on Current TV, delivered a passionate attack on fellow Michigander Mitt Romney.
(More speeches below the jump...)
Sen. John Kerry unloaded on Mitt Romney as well, poking wry fun as he turned the "flip-flopper" and "for it before he was against it" attacks leveled against himself 8 years ago on the Republican nominee in 2012.
“It isn’t fair to say Mitt Romney doesn’t have a position on Afghanistan,” Kerry said. “He has every position.”
Discussing the Libyan intervention, Kerry said Romney had adopted several conflicting opinions, an indication that he’d be a weak leader on foreign policy.
“Talk about being for it before you were against it,” Kerry said, a reference to the line Kerry himself infamously used to describe his record on the Iraq War. “Mr. Romney, here’s a little advice: Before you debate Barack Obama on foreign policy, you better finish the debate with yourself.”
Even on more benign foreign policy duties, Kerry said Romney was not fit to lead. Citing Romney’s widely-panned overseas trip, in which the Republican presidential nominee drew criticism from local leaders in Britain and elsewhere, Kerry said Romney did not know how to represent America well.
“For Mitt Romney, an overseas trip is what you call it when you trip all over yourself overseas. It wasn’t a goodwill mission—it was a blooper reel,” he said.
That led to Vice-President Joe Biden, who praised the tough choices and hard road the President dealt with over the last four years.
Day after day, night after night, I sat beside him, as he made one gutsy decision after another—to stop the slide and reverse it. I watched him stand up to intense pressure and stare down choices of enormous consequence. Most of all, I saw what drove him: His profound concern for the American people.
He knew, that no matter how tough the decisions he had to make in the Oval Office were, families all over America had to make decisions every bit as tough for them—as they sat around their kitchen tables. Barack and I have been through a lot together. And we’ve learned a lot about each other. I learned of the enormity of his heart. And he learned of the depth of my loyalty. And there was another thing that bound us. We both had a pretty good idea what these families were going through—in part because our own families had gone through similar struggles.
Barack had to sit at the end of his mom's hospital bed and watch her fight cancer and fight her insurance companies at the same time. I was a kid, but I can remember the day that my dad sat at the end of my bed, and said, things are going to be tough for a while. I have to go to Delaware to get a new job. But it's going to be better for us. The rest of my life, my dad never failed to remind me—that a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about being able to look your children in the eye—and say honey, it’s going to be okay, and believe it was going to be okay. When Barack and I were growing up, there was an implicit understanding. If you took responsibility, you’d get a fair shot at a better deal. The values behind that deal—were the values that shaped us both. And today, they are Barack’s guiding star.
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