Day 3 of DNC

Day 3 was as a great day for the Dem's.

When I left the convention hall I felt I had just left a theatrical performance in the best sense. There was drama, suspense, characters and a surprise ending.

With Hillary offering all of New York's votes to put Obama over the top and moving to stop the roll call vote to nominate Obama by acclimation, you could not ask for any more. She did what she needed to do and then some to help unity her party.

Bill was brilliant. My favorite part of his speech was the following:

“The choice is clear. The Republicans in a few days will nominate a good man who has served our country heroically and who suffered terribly in a Vietnamese prison camp. He loves his country every bit as much as we do. As a senator, he has shown his independence of right-wing orthodoxy on some very important issues.

But on the two great questions of this election -- how to rebuild the American dream and how to restore America's leadership in the world -- he still embraces the extreme philosophy that has defined his party for more than 25 years.

And it is, to be fair to all the Americans who aren't as hard-core Democrats as we, it's a philosophy the American people never actually had a chance to see in action fully until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and the Congress.

Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades actually were implemented. And look what happened.”

Two things I love most about this quote. First, Bill starts, not in the common defensive posture having to explain why we D's are patriotic, but by recognizing McCain loves his country as much as we do. He just has bad ideas of how to love his country.

Second, he subordinates McCain's strengths-character and history of being a maverick-by recognizing them and setting them aside for this election's central question. This campaign is about choosing the best person to “rebuild the American dream” and “restore America's leadership in the world.”