Barack

After a sloppy and self-flattering speech from Howard Dean, Barack Obama gave the keynote address.

Toni Morrison once called Bill Clinton, rather inaccurately, the "first black president." Tonight, Obama emerged as a black successor to Clintonism. He might have lacked the southern accent, but the rhetorical style was unmistakable. In an extended riff, he intoned along the lines of Clinton's 1992 campaign (slight paraphrase) "we are not a liberal America and a conservative America...a black or a white America, but the United States of America"; and later, that "we coach little league games in the blue states, and yes, we have gay friends in the red states." This is precisely the sort of centrist populism that propelled Bill Clinton in 1992, and he combined it eloquently with an appeal to national security interests. It would be very unwise to underestimate this guy's potential.