Party Unity

Day two could have gone a lot of ways, and thank goodness it turned out to be the demonstration of party unity that this Convention needed. I came over to the Convention Center fairly early, because I had heard that there were still some issues surrounding the rollcall vote for tomorrow. It looks like it will go one of three ways:

1) Normal rollcall vote. Clinton and Obama delegates vote their respective ways on first "ballot", then Clinton calls for a uninamous endorsement of Obama

2) Illinois votes first (The homestate traditionally puts the nominee over the top of the number of votes they need for the nomination, so this would be a deviation), New York votes second, with Clinton as the "voter", and asks that Obama be nominated by acclamation.

3) There has been some rumblings that the vote will take place before the convention goes live at individual delegate hotels. This is clearly controversial.

I had some concerns going in the Hall today. Today was the 88th anniversary of the day women were given the right to vote, and there was a march of 1000 or so delegates and others who marched to the Convention center on Clinton's behalf. Once inside, there were a handful of delegates in Clinton paraphenalia, and they were definitely getting all the media attention and spot interviews.

The celebration of women continued with a salute to the female Senators, a carryover from the last convention that I found touching and appropriate.

Primetime coverage involved some ups and downs. I thought that Warner was only so-so, and I think the hall agreed with me. He didn't seem to capture the crowd at all. There were quite a large number of political and entertainment celebrities on the floor today. I met one of my favorites, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. The floor was closed by fire marshalls at about 715 our time, about 90 minutes before Mrs. Clinton would go on. This is the first time I've seen the floor "closed" before Wednesday evening.

A close runner up for best of the evening when to Governor Schweitzer from Montana. He could not have been better received by the crowd, who on large part, didn't even know who he was. He was extremely captivating, and had the crowd roaring. Having a moderate Western governor in prime time = good move. I think this was a nod to the "rising star" role that the Tuesday night speeches are intended to have as a focus

There was supposed to be about 15 minutes of "dance set" before the Clinton speech to warm up the crowd, but that was dropped from the program. I'm not sure if that was because of east coast primetime limitations, or because Schweitzer had amped the crowd sufficiently, but the Clinton speech was up next. The crowd LOVED IT. It was appropriate, motivating, inspiring, and unifying. I said to the person sitting next to me that this could be the single most important speech of Barack Obama's race, and I think that if that's the case, it was a resounding success. Obama and Clinton delegates alike brought the house down. It was, for lack of a better adjective, awesome.