Night 1
I did a presentation yesterday on political blogging, and it went very well. I've spent a lot of today looking at opinions about what happened last night, and how it might effect things. I didn't see any of Gore's or Carter's speeches, beyond the highlights later, and I heard snippets on CNN and MSNBC's Radio channels.
I did, however, get to see most of Bill Clinton's speech. He remains the master. His speech, I heard Russert say, and I agree, was more old-fashioned oratory than anything else. He said George Bush was a good man, a good man who happened to be wrong about a lot of things. Clinton did a fabulous job, probably a better one than the "valedictory" speech he made in Los Angeles four years ago, in getting people to look at the new guy as the one to lead us. He didn't do a great job of doing that for Al Gore. He did an excellent job of it for John Kerry. He took self-effacing jabs at himself, and his connections with the administration, on taxes and in comparing John Kerry's war record to that of the Republican ticket and himself. He was vintage Bill, going after every side, Moderate conservatives, liberals, moderates. I don't know how often we will see Bill again at these things. Carter's appearance last night was the first time he had done anything at a convention in a while. Unless Hillary gets nominated, and I strongly doubt that she will, in the next two election cycles, we may not see Bill again for a while. If, however, this was a swansong, he had a beautiful one.

Gore was self-effacing, and he needed to be. If he went crazy criticizing Bush, the Republicans would have painted him as the left's Nikita Kruschev, barely sane, banging his shoe on the podium. He was restrained. He reminded people of 2000 without whining, as he has a right to do. He made soft-peddled appeals to Nader voters. Gore may become an effective campaigner if the Democrats want to use him. I would use him in states like Florida, Oregon or Minnesota, battleground states that might be tipped by Nader voters. He can be a living reminder of what happens when you throw your vote away.

Tonight won't be televised nationally by the broadcast networks. If you have Cable, or live in Chicago, watch Obama's keynote, as it might be the official beginning of a spectacular career. Theresa Heinz-Kerry will speak tonight, as will the old Lion himself, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy.

Kerry's people have done a good job of keeping people restrained, of muzzling the anti-Bush rhetoric. Both Dean and Kucinich, and Dean speaks tonight, have promised to keep the rhetoric toned down, because we have to win. We have to. For those of you who want red-meat, understand that this isn't your time. This is Kerry's time to introduce himself to all those people out there who don't know who he is. This is John Kerry's time, not the anti-Bush time. We know that George Bush isn't the one we want, we know he isn't the right man for the job. But lecturing undecideds about it, and being full of vitriol in doing it is not the way to win hearts and minds. Bush is, if nothing else, a decent man. People want to like him. People just need to understand that we need a man of intellectual substance now, one who realizes, as the 42nd POTUS said last night "That Strength and Wisdom are not opposing virtues"