Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC, during Michelle Obama’s speech. Photo by Steve Bott, via Flickr.com.

5 p.m.: Convention opens with a blast of funk, and a huge scrim displaying a pastoral, and the words “Democratic National Convention: Americans Coming Together.”

• Debbie Wasserman Schultz looks gorgeous. Hair, white dress, makeup — this is the least tired she’s looked in a year or so.

• “Welcome to our deliberations,” she says. “We shall hold the most open and accessible political convention in history.” She sounds natural, un-robot like. Some people in the audience look like gay leprechauns. Green, rainbows, funny hats.

• “Engaging the American spirit, involving people who want to put their shoulder to the wheel … As I look out … I see a diverse assembly … we are the most vibrant, inclusive, and energized political party” in the world.

• Looks like it! There are Sikhs in the audience!

• Housekeeping, announcements about when to submit stuff to the secretary. And — a shout-out to DJ Cassady? Cassidy? Does the DNC not have a band?

• A blessing from a funny-looking shaman from the Greek Orthodox Church who’s dressed like a professor at Hogwarts. Metropolitan Nicholas, he’s called. Camera zooms in on a another Sikh.

• Lots of black people here!

• The shaman drones on. Everyone looks at their feet.

• Our children, promises the shaman, will be blest forever. “To you,” God, “the glory forever, amen.”

• Now, disabled vets “show the colors.” I’ve never known what that means. They’ve got guns! A very solemn procession of what look like — Korea vets? Nam vets? They’re old guys, but it’s hard to tell how old on TV.

• A third grade class leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Adorable! A diverse class. Big applause.

5:10 p.m.: Amber Riley, of Glee, sings the National Anthem. She’s got a pretty, warm voice, a little plain. It’s a girl-next-door voice.

• … but why must everyone take liberties with this melody? At least Riley doesn’t do that Whitney Houston thing on the word “free,” that gratuitous leap into the headvoice. Riley lets it ring out.

• DNC CFO Dean Kerrigan looks about three. He’s very into the convention’s openness, its huge number of delegates, and — whoops. There’s an old woman in the crowd being led in or out by security. C-SPAN’s filmic priorities are weird. So’s the old lady’s hat. She’s got lots of flair, like a TGIF waitress, but octagenerian. Kerrigan wants to remind us of Ted Kennedy — “the work goes on! Four more years!”

5:16 p.m.: A brief vid on the making of the convention. Also, the making of Charlotte. Started with cotton, a crop called “tabakkah,” and soy beans. Now, the whole city’s gone high-tech — “This is gonna be an energy hub for the future,” says the voiceover. Charlotte’s pretty! Charlotte congratulates itself on the ease with which it desegregated its schools.

• Did you know that Charlotte is the tenth-largest city in America? I didn’t!

• Did you know that attractive young black men do gay dance routines in Charlotte’s streets? I didn’t! But this video’s showing me!

• Did you know that Charlotte’s people are … heavy?

• “We do believe you can use government in a good way. Government’s the only thing we all belong to.” True.

• Lots of people dancing in the street in Charlotte. Wow. This video is very prominently featuring that one gay dancer. I love it. There weren’t any effeminate types shown on-screen at the RNC. This convention’s been in session just 19 minutes and we’ve got one already.

5:20 p.m.: Onstage is Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who’s also co-chair of the credentialing committee for the conference.

• She’s natural! She’s earthy! She’s dressed like a huge grape! What the fuck?

• Business for delegates, alternates, etc.

• “When Obama stepped into office, he pulled our economy back from the brink!” Huge applause.

• There’s a black cowboy in the audience.

• The grape is ringing all the bells. Religion, race, class, sexual orientation, gender — Dems love everyone. Also: education and the economy.

• The grape’s got some of the black church in her. She makes the “move to adopt the credentials committee report” sound exciting.

• Unlike at the RNC, when this is put to a vote, the “yays” are jazzed, and the “nays” are non-existent.

5:27 p.m.: The rules committee. Martin O’Malley, the Maryland governor, is onstage sporting serious gayface. Is he gay?

• Kamala Haris is talking. She’s the Californian Attorney General. O’Malley wanders away just as he’s introduced. “I can sing a little song until we start …” says Harris. Huge cheers!

• Damn! These conventioners are pumped!

• Huge cheers for O’Malley, too. Seriously — is he gay? He looks gay.

5:30 p.m.: Rules! Votes! The crowd cheers like mad! But why? This is the boring stuff.

5:33 p.m.: Antonio Villairagossa of LA. He’s a good guy. Stammers a bit.

• Rep. Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, looks like an old-fashioned party boss. The blinding whiteness of his teeth. The power of his perfumed jowls. The crispness of his suit. The silver perfection of his hair. But — boring. Sounds passionate, but he’s just thanking folks. Committeefolk, officerfolk, party hierarchies. Boring boring boring.

• And here’s Andy Tobias, the DNC treasurer. He reminds us that the Democratic Party is the party of Pell Grants, workers’ rights, the minimum wage. The economy does better under Democrats, he says. So do investors.

• For example, says Tobias: The stock market’s up 58% since Barack Obama’s gotten into office.

• Also for example: Imagine you put $10,000 into the stock market in 1925. If you kept it in the market during only those years when Republicans held the White House, it would have grown to almost $30,000.

• But! If you keep it in the market during only those years when Democrats held the White House, it would have grown to $300,000.

• (Of course, although both Democrats and Republicans held the White House for 44 years each during that period, only Republicans were unlucky enough to hold the White House during 1929, 2007, and 2008; which were not banner years for the stock market.)

• Another shout-out to Barack’s gays! Says Tobias:

The Democratic party, under the leadership of Barack Obama, has dramatically improved the lives of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans — and at no cost to anyone else. In college, I thought I was the only guy in the world who liked other guys. Later, I found there was someone else like me, exactly like me. Our 26-year-old resident tutor. He and I never talked about it at the time. No one talked about being gay back then. People killed themselves over being gay. Tragically, some kids still do. But the progress we have made … Remember that 26-year-old resident tutor? Eight weeks ago, I attended that 26-year-old resident tutor’s wedding. To a guy!

• Crazy applause.

• That resident tutor, it turns out, was Barney Frank. Small world!

5:40 p.m.: I leave for ten seconds to huff a cigarette on the roof, and someone who looks like Bea Arthur’s onstage.

• She says this convention “looks like America.”

• This is Alice Germond, DNC secretary.

• She sings praise of Barack’s economic record, which is interesting: So far, just about everyone’s done this, which suggests Barack’s trying to turn what Romney thinks is his biggest weakness into a strength.

• We gather, says Bea Arthur, gay and straight, from small towns and big cities, united by a love of America, to build the future “from the middle class out, not from the top down.”

• We have a quorum!

5:46 p.m.: Barbara Lee, of California: A cheerful, middle-aged black lady. She’s a congresswoman from Oakland. Four years ago, the American dream was out of reach — but Barack Obama changed our course!

5:52 p.m.: Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy. The crowd is jazzed, but so far it’s difficult to say about what. Barbara Lee was full of talking points, Lt. Gen. Kennedy’s soft-spoken to a fault — but she just got big applause for mentioning the repeal of DADT! The Democrats are going all-in with the gays!

• Lt. Gen. Ken’s introduced a video about rebuilding middle class America.

• In the vid we meet Melissa. She’s a science teacher at North High School in … where? “We had a lot of ideas,” she says, “but we were always short on the resources.” They applied for a school improvement grant. Went from being the lowest-performing school in the district to the second highest. Kids are engaged; emotionally connected to the learning; kids walk purposefully to class. “That’s what it’s all about!”

• Meet an old white dude — he’s a “site developer” with a company called “RPM access.” They build wind farms in Iowa. He talks about the benefits of wind farms to local economies, to the environment, to national security. “I’m sixty-seven,” he says. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t believe in it … We wouldn’t have this business if it wasn’t for Barack Obama.“

• Meet Fred, president and owner of Keystone Electric Manufacturing Company. Middle-aged black man. Been producing a ton of equipment for the wind industry. Thanks Barack!

• Meet Amy and Ross. A little while back, Amy developed a bad cold, and then an awful cough; a week later she was on life support.  Turns out, she was afflicted by a rare fungal pneumonia. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, both these guys had a million dollar max on their insurance policies. They blew through that in a few weeks. No Affordable Care Act, Amy wouldn’t have gotten the surgeries that now allow her to speak. She speaks, we observe, by depressing a button in her neck.

• … and here’s Peggy, a tough looking white lady who comes from a line of auto workers. It’s hard work, she says, making cars — it kicked her ass when she started. Barack saved her industry, and now she trusts him. “I think actions speak louder than words. And I’ve seen him in action … and he cares.

6 p.m.: Cory Booker! Newark mayor and noted superhero! He’s here to talk about the party’s platform.

• Our platform’s “not about partisanship. It’s about pragmatism.” Moving America and the economy … forward! This is the convention’s slogan, and everyone’s using it.

• Booker’s passionate. All of these people are much less stodgy than their Republican counterparts. Here’s a black dude, speaking about stuff he clearly cares about — no one much cared at the RNC. At the RNC, they were all bad actors pretending to care about what they were saying. But that’s what Republicans like. Real passion makes them nervous. Pol Pot was impassioned. Castro was impassioned. Ronald Reagan was an actor.

• Booker’s talking about the platform. You know it already –

• – and here we have another Sikh! The cameraman is a Sikh fetishist!

• “Our ancestors prioritized growth, and investments in our nation’s infrastructure.” Our great bridges, our great highways, the tunnels that let him escape to New York when Newark becomes too hellish.

• Praise for small businesses.

• … but didja know Barack Obama’s given tax cuts to small businesses? Eighteen of em!

• “Our nation cannot continue to be the world’s number one economy if we’re not committed to being the world’s number one educator.”

• Another Sikh! He’s cheering for gay rights!

• Another Sikh! 

• Are the Republicans watching at home assuming the conference has been infiltrated by some kind of Muslim sect with a waxed-moustache fetish?

• Cory Booker is a helpless yeller. His whisper is a holler and his yell is a hurricane. The microphone flinches. But it works for him — it doesn’t seem overwrought, and he can achieve surprising dynamic variance while yelling. He just seems enthused about the Democratic platform. He likes it! He reallyreally likes it!

• Women in the audience are in tears.

• Cory Booker, it should be noted, is one sexy motherfucker.

6:11 p.m.: Villaigarororosasasa is back onstage. Votes! Question calling! Ayes! Nays? No nays! “We now have a new national Democratic party platform.”

• … which, by the way, no longer calls for abortions to be “safe, legal, and rare.” Now it just calls for abortions. Why?

6:14 p.m.: Gov. Beverly Perdue, of North Carolina. The accent is edible. It tastes like smoke and pork fat.

• Boring stuff, though the crowd’s not bored.

• “Roads and bridges” has, in the United States, become a single word.

• A mention of Planned Parenthood causes women in burkas stand up and cheer!

• The camera really loves: Sikhs, black cowboys, babies, and wizened black women.

• Perdue’s voice is giving out. Is she about to cry? Coming down with laryngitis? Is something wrong?

6:19 p.m.: A video! What’s this? Mountains — a boy. Ryan Case. “When I was seventeen, my dad got sick. He got the flu.”

• Didn’t go to the doctor because he had no insurance. He couldn’t handle the expense.

• Wasn’t an ordinary flu. Got worse. Kidneys failed. He died.

• His mom came down with MS. Ryan is crying. I’m crying. The convention is beating me to a pulp.

• Mom died. “She was my best friend.” Now he’s really a mess.

• Now — “Every day, I am calling people. And telling my story. And if my story helps people understand what’s at stake, then I’ll share it.”

• And now he’s onstage! Ryan Case, from Boulder, Colorado.

• He goes to the University of Colorado.

• President Obama doubled Pell Grant funds available to help Ryan finish his education.

• Governor Romney’s plan would reduce Pell Grants for “ten million students like me. We’d still work as hard. Our hard work just wouldn’t pay off.”

• “President Obama believes in me. He’s worked for me. This year, let’s work for him.“

6:25 p.m.: Service Employees International Union president, Mary Kay Henry. A Unionist! And a lesbian!

• Vicious attacks on Romney, and they’re all true.

6:29 p.m.: Rep. Charles Gonzalez, of Texas. He’s the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman.

• Obama loves Latins, he explains.

• Later tonight, the keynote speaker will be a Latin Texan, too. This is not a coincidence. If the Democrats can keep the Latin vote, Texas will become a blue  state in 2016, robbing the GOP of its gazillion electoral votes forever. Obama’s been on the stump in Texas, saying things like: “Texas isn’t a blue state –yet.” No wonder Republicans are scrambling. This is the last election they can win with the angry white dude vote.

• “E plurbis unum,” says Rep. Gonzalez, with his thick Mexican accent. The sound of the future.

• Mitt Romney has “embraced the policies of Jan Brewer and … Joe Arpaio. Would separate families that have been together for generations.”

• One of the convention’s leitmotif’s, I think:

We prosper when our neighbors prosper; when they’re equipped to give back to this country. And that’s not measured by the size of one’s bank account. It is measured by dedication and hard work. Justice, fairness, and opportunity do not go to the highest bidder. They belong to the American who is willing to invest his or her energy to better themselves, to provide for their families, and to build a brighter future. 

6:36 p.m.: Rep. Nydia Velazquez, of New York. Brooklyn. Her district surrounds the house in which I’m writing, but I’m not in it. Redistricting is a funny thing.

• “Dreamers, who are American in every way except on paper, now live free from the shadow of deportation.”

• Huge applause. The Latinos aren’t cheering for Democrats. They’re cheering for families not being forcibly broken up. Mitt Romney and the Republicans have committed political suicide.

6:42 p.m.: Gov. Pat Quinn, Illinois, offers boring partisan attacks. All true, but boring. You’ve heard this before.

6:50 p.m.: Doug Stern, a Cincinnati fire fighter — and, until recently, a Republican!

• His party, says Stern, has left him behind — has made public workers like him into scapegoats. “President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden still believe public service is an honorable calling.“

6:54 p.m.: Tim Kaine! He’s boring.

• Nevertheless, I will summarize his speech, so I can refer to it when describing subsequent, similar speeches.
• Republicans want to raise taxes on the middle class! Turn medicare to a voucher system! Invalidate gay families! Separate brown families! They love rich people! They don’t know the working class! They’re indifferent to students!

7:02 p.m.: I have thoroughly zoned out.

• But now — a mayor of someplace! Anthony Foxx, of Charlotte. He is sufficiently marginal that I feel unguilty about leaving the house to get dinner.

7:06 p.m.: Goddammit, I can’t go eat, because here’s Harry Reid. Give us some red meat, Harry! Go!

• Blah, blah. Obama’s strength-of-character, his awesome leadership: “Some said he shouldn’t save Detroit … Obama chose to save more than XXX jobs … bin Laden … banks … he took ‘em on … taxpayers … never again  … on the hook for Wall Street … insurance companies … ripping us off …”

• God, Harry Reid’s dull.

7:14ish: A video about education. We must rebuild schools; eliminate the “corridors of shame.”

• Pell Grants! Why is this a debate? Why are we debating whether or not to spend money on our citizens’ education? Are we fucking crazy?

7:17 p.m.: … and here’s Nancy Pelosi. It’s good that the DNC’s knocking her off on Tuesday, during the C-SPAN hours.

• Nancy wants to introduce us to the ladies of the house.

• Rosa DeLauro, a legislator from Connecticut, needs to stop tanning. If she quits now, she could still make a serviceable pair of moccassins one day.

• Bonus: moccassins don’t bray at you.

• Congresswoman Maloney, from the great great state of New York.

• A Sikh in the audience!

• “… I asked them — where are the women? Where are the women? Where are the women? They’re here!“

• Rep. Schwartz, from Pennsylvania. All Democratic congresswomen look like lesbians.

• An Emergency Alert Message. A required weekly test.

• Ladies! Lots of ladies! The squealing of the EAM continues!

7:29 p.m.: Seriously, now. Dinner.

7:44 p.m.: … but wait! A Kennedy!

• Young Messr. Joe Kennedy, XVII, a congressional candidate, wants to remind us all that this is the first convention since 1876 without his uncle, Ted, in attendance.

• I get uncomfortable when people lionize Ted Kennedy, because he did that thing. There never was a good excuse for that thing.

• Young Messr. Joe Kennedy XXMMVII wants to remind us that Ted Kennedy helped secure peace in troubled Northern Ireland.

• But — that thing.

• Forgiveness is important. Redemption is always possible.

• But isn’t that only true for the repentant? Can grace descend upon an unrepentant sinner?

• Not entirely. Which is why, as a video shows Ted saying inspiring things, hanging out with Nelson Mandela, fighting for civil rights, workers’ rights, and so on, my mind is in the silt and mud of Cape Cod.

• A video of Ted debating Mitt Romney in the senate race of 1994.

• Wow! The young Mitterschnapper got his ass kicked! Ted killed him!

• Ted didn’t literally kill him. Ted literally killed someone else.

7:55 p.m.: Entertainment! A lady named Legacy!

• “This is for America,” she says.

• She’s awful.

8 p.m.: I’m really going to dinner now.

8:20 p.m.: A sports bar. A burger with a fried egg on it. Blue Point’s “Rastafarye Pale Ale.” The DNC’s on, but it’s muted.

10 p.m.: Home!

• Here’s the keynote! It’s Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio!

• His grandma was an orphan. She didn’t make it past the fourth grade.

• She had to drop out to help support her family — really? Out of the fourth grade?

• Julian’s mama’s sitting in back, looking tearful.

• The crowd’s almost too boisterous; kills the momentum of the speech.

• Here’s the story of of Julian’s and Joaquin’s birth. They’re twins. Joaquin’s running for congress.

• Mom always said “God bless you” as the kids walked out the door to school. Everyone cheers at the rags-to-office story. But –

• “My family’s story isn’t special. What’s special is the America that made our stories possible.” This is the same rah-rah nonsense from the RNC. And it’s obnoxious. Dreams don’t just come true in America, guys! It happens in other places, too! In some places, it happens with more frequency.

• For example. Remember how quickly Ayaan Hirsi Ali became a parliamentarian in the Netherlands after arriving, penniless and ignorant of the local language, from some Islamist mudhole in northern Africa? It took, like, four years. That doesn’t happen in America, by jingo!

• “Opportunity today leads to prosperity tomorrow.” The difference between the dreams-come-true claptrap at the RNC and the dreams-come-true claptrap here is that the Dems emphasize how schools, roads’n'bridges, and other people make our journeys possible.

• Undoubtedly true. Problem is, Julian Castro looks like a huckster.

• Will-I-Am fucks with his phone in the audience.

• Every time Julian mentions Texas, the Texans go nuts.

• Texas, Julian points out, is one of the few places where people still have bootstraps, and Texans do expect folks to pull themselves up by ‘em. “But there are some things no one can do alone.”

• Public schools, public schools. “We know you can’t be pro-business unless you’re pro-education.”

• “Opportunity today for prosperity tomorrow.” That’s a slogan, apparently.

• Julian tells the anecdote about how Mitt Romney told a class of students that, if they want to start a business, they should borrow the necessary funds from their parents. “Gee,” marvels Julian, “why didn’t I think of that?”

Mitt Romney … I think he’s a good guy. He just has no idea how good he’s had it. We know that in our free market economy, some will propser more than others. What we don’t accept is that some people won’t even get a chance … Mitt Romney and the Republican party are perfectly happy living in that America.

• The Romney/Ryan plan dismantles the middle class! Which “previous generations worked so hard to build.”

• Julian makes a hilarious joke at Mitt Romney’s expense.

• He’s much better lionizing Obama or demonizing Romney than he is lionizing himself.

• We were on the brink of a depression — “And despite incredible odds, and unified Republican opposition,” Obama saved us.

• “The American dream isn’t a sprint, or even a marathon – but a relay.” A multi-generational relay.

• Chokes up talking about his mom. Says to his daughter the same thing his mama said to him, dropping her off at first day of pre-K. “God bless you!” Generations come and go. Some things change. Many things remain the same. It’s sentimentalist nonsense, but it’s effective. The crowd in Charlotte’s been crying for hours.

10:30 p.m.: Is it 10:30? I’m watching MSNBC, and they don’t give you the time, and I checking my clock ‘cuz I’m watching on a delay.

• Anyway — here comes Michelle Obama!

• Awesome introductory video. Michelle’s voice cracking in a speech someplace, as she says: “If any family in this country struggles, then we cannot be fully content with our own family’s good fortune. Because that is not what we do in this country. That is not who we are. That is not who we are.“

• Michelle and her brother, Craig, were the first kids in their family to go to college.

• This is all still the introductory video: the relationship between Mrs. Obama’s parents seems like it was amazing. Michelle’s mum says her husband would wake up smiling, all but hop out of bed, “almost sing his way out the door” — despite the fact that he needed a walker because of his MS — “and that would kind of wake me up.”

• I’m a little amazed at how political this video isn’t. Lots of of stuff about kids and fitness. Michelle dancing with kids. Dancing silly-like! This is not a stuck-up lady.

• Lots of jokes. Michelle joking with Jimmy Fallon, Ellen, Letterman.

• Barack: “In our household, she’s the conductor, and I’m second fiddle …” That seems a little stage-y.

• Now, Michelle will speak. She’s introduced by “military mother” Elaine Brye.

• “I’m not even a political person,” says Brye. “What I am is a military mom.” She’s got four kids in the service, five kids in all. A boy each in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The youngest is in high school. “And yes, we are hoping he’ll join the Coast Guard.”

• Is that creepy?

• Brye’s talking about the Obamas’ support of military families — getting businesses involved in hiring the fams and the vets and whatnot. She’s about to cry!

• The reason she’s here: She wrote Michelle a letter a year ago; a thank-you letter. And that got her invited to the White House.

• “It was an amazing experience. But what’s even more amazing is knowing our Commander In Chief is thinking about families like mine every day … If people are there for families like mine, I’m there for them. That’s why I’m so proud to introduce my fellow mom … First Lady Michelle Obama!”

10:42 p.m.? Michelle comes out to “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” and –

• Holy shit.

• Holy shit.

• That dress! Pink edging into purple, silver and shiny on the bottom, intricate and almost indecipherable patterns all over it, cut sheer in places, showing off her extraordinary arms; her extraordinary neck, those legs!

• Michelle Obama is one of the most beautiful women in America.

• The crowd is crazy. It won’t let her start!

• Over the cheers, she starts anyway.

• Michelle tells stories of people looking after each other. Flying across the country to put out a fire, driving for hours to bail out a flooded town. Teachers in a bankrupt district vowing to teach on, payless. A soldier who’s lost his eyes, saying he’d be blinded again, a hundred times, to serve his country. She’s met these people. This, she says, is America.

• Years ago, when she and Barack first met, Barack would pick her up for dates in a car so rusted she could see the street going by through a hole in a door. Barack’s proudest possession in those days — a coffee table from a dumpster. His only good shoes were a half size too small.

• They bonded over their similar families. Love-filled, values-instilling families, who were happy despite not having much money.

• More about her dad, the pump operator with MS.

• She recalls her and brother Craig, standing at the top of their stairs, watching dad pick up one leg with his hands and then the other — to “climb his way into our arms” after a day at work.

• She and Craig got through college via loans and grants, but dad had to pay some small portion out of pocket. He always paid it right away. Sometimes, he had to take out loans to pay on time. “For my dad, that’s what it meant to be a man.”

• “As I got to know Barack, I realized he’d been brought up just like me.”

“Our families weren’t asking for much. They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success, or even care that others had much more than they did. In fact, they admired it. They simply believed in that fundamental American promise: Even if you don’t start out with much, if you work hard and do what you’re supposed to do, you can build a decent life for yourself, and an even better life for your kids and grandkids. That’s how they raised us. That’s what we learned from their example. We learned about dignity and decency. That how hard you work matters more than how much you make. That helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself. We learned about honesty and integrity; that the truth matters; that you don’t take shortcuts; or play by your own set of rules; and that success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square. We learned about gratitude and humility; that so many people had a hand in our success; from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our schools clean. And we were taught to value everyone’s contribution, and treat everyone with respect. Those are the values that Barack and I and so many of you are trying to pass on to our own children.”

• Wow. Michelle’s just killing it. I want to quote this whole damn speech.

• “All the decisions that cross a president’s desk are the hard ones,” she says. The president gets all kinds of advice, but at the end of the day he’s left alone with his values, with the memories of his long gone teachers, and with his conscience.

• When B&M got married, their student loan payments were higher than their mortgage payments. “We were so young, so in love, and so in debt.” That’s why BO has tried to lighten students’ loads.

• These struggles aren’t political. “They’re personal.”

• Another nod to gays!

• “When you’ve walked through that door of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. No. You reach back, and you give other people the same chances that helped you succeed.”

• “For Barack, success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about how much of a difference you make in people’s lives.”

• This is, among other things, a protracted call for a return to selflessness. A rebuke to an entitled generation, and incipient American selfishness.

• Is it also, perhaps, a plea to Americans to stop worrying about their bank accounts?

• No matter. This is important. Everyone in the audience, a lot of working class people, they’re nodding along — they want to sacrifice.  They’re willing to work hard, live with less, to ensure that their kids have more.

• Lots of soldiers in the audience, nodding along. Lots of religious people, too.

• Wow — another nod to gays. In the most passionate part of her address — in which she celebrates blacksmiths and farmers winning independence; workers defeating a depression; a preacher taking us to the mountain top! – she ends with: proud Americans at the altar, marrying the people they love! 

• She’s killing it! This is the most powerful advertisement for LGBT equality in the history of television. If the convention keeps up like this, it’s gonna be a game changer.

• “We must be prepared to work like never before!”

• Michelle departs, sweat-soaked. I’m sweat-soaked. Everyone’s sweat-soaked.

• On MSNBC, even Republican operative Steve Schmidt is twitterpated. “Beautiful,” he says, looking stunned. Yep.

Cory Booker, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC, Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney, Will-I-Am