The DNC: Opening Night

7pm: We are LIVE from Denver! MSNBC literally has a cast of thousands on hand to bring you the very best in liberally-slanted convention coverage. Joining us tonight are Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Tom Brokaw, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, Ann Curry, the beautiful and talented Norah O’Donnell, Luke Russert, and former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. Special guest stars Joseph Scarborough and Patrick Buchanan as the token conservatives. With the right-wingers at Fox News still dominating the ratings battle, who is to say where the middle really lies?

We begin with Chris Matthews introducing us to the PUMA crowd, which at first sounds like an exciting new term for cougars. But no, PUMA stands for Party Unity My Ass, and you can guess who these people have come to Denver to support. Matthews reports, “These whackos are claiming that Obama is a registered Muslim, whatever the hell that means.”

We quickly go to a break, most likely to save Matthews from yet another round of phony-feminist protest, and return with Luke Russert. Luke has been brought in to report on the youth vote, but his appearance serves as a constant hat tip to his father. I spend the entire segment reminiscing about why Tim Russert was the very best at what he did, and when Keith Olbermann kicks us over to a smiling Tom Brokaw he adds, “I know why you are smiling. Me too.” These next two months are going to be a constant reminder of what we have all lost.

8:09pm: Chuck Todd checks in to get us ready for Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker was allegedly neutral throughout the primary, but her display of neutrality was believable to exactly no one. Todd describes the long history of problems Pelosi has had with the Clintons. It goes back to Bill’s administration, NAFTA, China, and the first couple’s propensity for blaming Congress when it suited them.

8:12pm: She is at the podium, but there is no sound. (This will be a problem throughout the night, but luckily this is the only speech that is affected.) Olbermann kills time, and then we join the speaker just in time to hear her praise the historic campaign of Senator Clinton. There are some faint boos from the crowd. The booing will help no one. My thoughts on Hillary are well known, but if heaping undeserved praise on her will help bring the whackos back into the fold then it is the right way to go.

Pelosi strikes me, as she always does, as being one or two steps removed from a Saturday Night Live parody. The sunken eyes, the lifted cheeks, the plastic smile…there is a Joan Rivers quality to her that defies belief. No one can really look like this, so who is wearing the costume? This is not a good thing.

She hammers away at Bush, reminding the audience of the Clinton surplus that was squandered by the Republicans and turned into a record deficit. You have to think that is the way to victory. Who can honestly say they are better off today than they were eight years ago? Not many, short of the Exxon crowd Bush and Cheney have been serving for years.

Pelosi wraps up by calling Barack Obama a “21st century patriot.” I don’t know quite what that means, but it sounds good and it helps her close out an otherwise weak speech on a strong note.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer joins us from the convention floor where he is stationed with the New York delegation. “We were big time for her, and we are still big time for her.” A beat passes and then, “No, what I mean to say is that we were big time for her, but now we are big time for him.” OK.

8:33pm: Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalyn are onstage. There are some waves, a few handshakes…and then they are off. No speech? WTF?

Ann Curry pounces for an interview, and Carter informs us of what we all know. “Clearly, many of the Clinton people have not made up their minds.” But they will, and the former president assures us that this is not the same as the Gerald Ford/Ronald Reagan fight from 1976. That may be true, but is it the same as the Jimmy Carter/Ted Kennedy fight from four years later? We shall see. The time for Curry to follow up with that question is not now, moments before a tribute to the cancer-stricken senior senator from Massachusetts, but it does loom over this entire convention.

8:45pm: I do love me some Norah O’Donnell.

Have you seen the McCain ad featuring the former Clinton supporter who now plans to vote Republican for the first time in her life? Rachel Maddow informs us that a press conference in Denver earlier that day, this poor fool (my words) claimed that it was OK for prochoice Dems to vote for McCain because he supports Roe v. Wade and would oppose its reversal! This, of course, is completely untrue. “You cannot argue with this kind of post-rational thinking,” says Maddow. And she is right. Who will these people blame when four years of John McCain results in a Supreme Court that does make abortion a crime? Will they look to themselves? Somehow I doubt it.

8:53pm: Joe Biden can be seen with his wife and grandkids at the back of the hall. The scene is very tender, loving, and it gives me one more reason to like the guy. He has already brought more to this ticket than John Edwards did in 2004.
That reminds me, John Edwards is completely missing in action here. He may not even be in Denver. What is worse for John is that he isn’t even really missed. The party marches on as if he was never there.

9pm: OK, I’ll admit: I love the NBC political theme music. It gets me all warm and fuzzy inside.

9:15pm: Caroline Kennedy is onstage to introduce the tribute to Uncle Teddy. Leaders like Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy come alone once or twice a generation, she tells us, but always when we need them. If you are on Medicare, Ted Kennedy is your senator. If you received a raise of the federal minimum wage, Ted Kennedy is your senator. Caroline fights back a few tears and delivers one hell of a speech, on the whole. Nancy Pelosi could take a lesson from her.

The video begins, and there is Ted Kennedy in Hyannisport, on his boat, in his office. He’s been fighting for universal healthcare all his life. A grieving father fights back tears as he tells us about the senator calling hearings and getting our troops the body armor that would have saved his sons life. Powerful stuff.

9:30: And there is the man himself! He doesn’t look bad given everything that has happened, just slightly weaker and with clouded eyes. Teddy speaks of unity between races, genders, and orientations—with the subtext being the party itself. Onto Iraq, a mistake from the beginning, and the country needs a Commander in Chief that will not commit brave Americans to a mistake, only to a worthy mission in the right place at the right time. The hall is rocking for this.

The camera cuts back to Joe Biden, who looks almost as if he is about to cry. Keep it together Joe. Any tears caught on camera will be in a Republican attack ad by sunrise.

Chris Matthews: “At the risk of being criticized, again, for saying something emotional about this country, I feel something when our leaders speak about unity between white and black, male and female, and gay and straight.” I do too, Chris. Especially when they mean it.

9:52pm: Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd appears to heap praise on Kennedy. He wasn’t due to arrive in Denver until Wednesday but came early when he learned Ted was going to speak.

As this celebration plays out, I realize that for the first time tonight the conversation is about something other than the Clintons. This is good for Obama, for sure, but also good for the Democratic Party as a whole. Whether you love them or not, the Kennedy family touches something deep inside us all. Three brothers prematurely struck down in various service to this country, and a fourth brother, unprepared and ill-equipped, left to carry on in their stead. In Teddy we are seeing something we never have before: a Kennedy brother growing old. That this is happening at the same time an heir-apparent has appeared on the political scene is almost poetic.

No, it isn’t getting dusty in here…but it is close.

BREAKING NEWS: John McCain, in a surprise to no one, has replied to a question from Jay Leno about the number of houses he owns with an anecdote about being a POW. This has now crossed the line into crazy, and at some point you do have to hope it blows up in his face. McCain has all my respect for surviving that ordeal—I cannot stress that strongly enough, all my respect—but at the end of the day it does not in any way qualify him to be President of the United States. Yet the beat goes on, and each and every question, regardless of content, goes back to Hanoi. He is becoming a self-parody.

10:30pm: “My name is Craig Robinson, and Michelle Obama is my little sister.” So begins the introduction of the candidate’s wife. This is a big speech, one that too much will be made of if it goes bad and not enough if it goes good. The deck is almost stacked.

Time passes…

My notes are shoddy, because the fact is that I am simply blown away by Michelle Obama. Without doubt, she gave what was the best speech of the night. She tells us of her childhood, of growing up with a father stricken by MS. She describes Barack driving them and their newborn daughter home from the hospital ten years ago, barely creeping over ten miles per hour.

For the first time I notice what a beautiful woman she is.

Again, Joe Biden looks like he might cry.

Michelle wraps up with the perfect closing line given all that has happened, “That is why I love my country.”

Boom. She nailed that speech.

The night wraps up with an appearance on camera by Barack and an adorable interplay between the father and his youngest daughter. Keith Olbermann exclaims that this could not have gone better for them, and he is absolutely right. Chris Matthews waxes poetic about never thinking he would see something like this in his lifetime, and how proud he is of his country. He, too, is absolutely right.

Night one was a complete success. The specter of the Clintons looms large for Tuesday and Wednesday, but Monday night in Denver was as good as it gets.

Until tomorrow…