Below The Beltway

After the Democratic National Convention got the business of nominating Barack Obama for President — which is, after all, the reason everyone’s in Denver to begin with — out of the way, it was time for nostalgia, red meat, and guys who’ve been running for President since 1988.

First, Bill Clinton got up and did something many thought he’d never do, he explicitly endorsed Barack Obama:

DENVER, Aug. 27 — At first, it seemed, it might be all about Bill Clinton and yesteryear. The former president strode onto the stage Wednesday night to his old campaign theme song, “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow),” and bathed in the glow of a standing ovation that went on so long and loud that he had to finally confess, “I love this.” But it turned out to be not about him at all, with Clinton delivering a speech that framed the case for Sen. Barack Obama and against the Republicans in a way that no one at this convention had done before.

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First was the unscripted ode to himself, which amounted to nothing more than him joyously trying to get the audience to sit down. He started and stopped three times before the crowd quieted enough to let him speak, and those several minutes, while eating up the time allotted to him — which he was destined to ignore in any case — served to remind everyone that for all of the controversy that seems to swirl around him, in and out of office, in and out of the campaigns, he still holds an uncommon place in the modern Democratic pantheon as the party’s only two-term president of the postwar era.

Then came an ode to Obama, which, if not overly warm, was indisputably lengthy and strong, filling the one void of his wife’s largely Obama-less speech the night before. Saying he is convinced that Obama is “the man for this job,” he praised the nominee’s “remarkable ability to inspire people,” his “intelligence and curiosity,” his “clear grasp” of foreign policy, the strength he gained from the “long, hard primary” against Hillary and the judgment he showed in choosing Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his running mate.

If this was all about Obama, there were also intimations of the Clinton years here. In 1992, Clinton gained momentum going into his convention by choosing Sen. Al Gore to run with him; and Obama, he said, in selecting Biden, “hit it out of the park.”

Next came the case against Sen. John McCain and the GOP. Here Clinton went into his professorial mode, biting his lip, jabbing his finger to make a point and throwing wide his hands as a means of inviting the audience in on his wisdom as he cited a litany of Republican failings in domestic and foreign policy. The longest ovation of his speech came after a slap at the Bush administration’s foreign policy propensities to go it alone and rely on force first. “People the world over,” Clinton said, “have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of power.”

At the end of this riff, Clinton paused, gathered in the audience and said, “They actually want us to reward them for the last eight years by giving them four more,” a bewildered expression crossing his tanned face. “Let’s send them a message that will echo from the Rockies all across America: Thanks, but no thanks. In this case, the third time is not the charm.”

And finally Clinton brought it all together by linking his presidency to the prospect of a “President Obama” — and in putting those two words together, it was as though he were finally, after months of reserve and hotheadedness, giving the new kid his blessing. Long gone was the Hillary Clinton campaign ad asking whom people might trust when the phone rang in the White House at 3 in the morning. Sixteen years ago, Bill Clinton said, the Republicans tried to diminish him by “saying I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.”

As Ezra Klein notes, the Obama campaign couldn’t have asked for anything more:

He left little unsaid. For all the talk of Bill Clinton’s anger, his resentment, his grudges, Clinton took the stage tonight and threw the full weight of his prestige behind Barack Obama. Leveraging that peculiar credibility that comes from being one of four living Americans to have held the presidency, he didn’t simply give Obama his support, but his endorsement. He said that Obama was not only ready, but right. The Obama camp could have asked for nothing more. Clinton could have delivered little more.

And Andrew Sullivan agrees:

Readers know my personal disdain for Bill Clinton. But longtime readers will also know I have always defended his solid centrist, smart record in office and defended him against his most over-reaching enemies. Tonight, I think, was one of the best speeches he has ever given. It was a direct, personal and powerful endorsement of Obama.

This really shouldn’t come as a surprise. For all his ego and self-absorption, Bill Clinton has always been a loyal Democrat. The fact that he is getting behind his parties nominee, even though that nominee is someone other than his wife, really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

After Clinton, it was Joe Biden’s turn to accept the Democratic nomination for Vice-President:

DENVER — Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night with an ode to his middle-class upbringing and a blistering attack on Senator John McCain.

On tax policy and the war in Iraq, on health care and terrorism, on the minimum wage and on Russia, Mr. Biden said, the contrast was clear between Mr. McCain and the Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama.

“Again and again,” he said, “on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.”

He said Mr. McCain had supported President Bush’s policies that Mr. Biden said had driven the American economy into a ditch and backed Mr. Bush on a war that is costing American taxpayers $12 billion a month.

As Democrats often do, he paid tribute to Mr. McCain’s military service and his more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That is not sufficient qualification for the presidency, Mr. Biden said in as direct a way as any Democrat this year has.

“The choice in this election is clear,” Mr. Biden said. “These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader,” he said, a leader who can deliver “the change that everybody knows we need.”

All in all, I thought Biden did a pretty good job last night. As is usually the case with Vice-Presidential nominees, he went on the attack against the Republicans with gusto and, if this is any indication, I can see him spending a lot of time in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio between now and November 4th:

Part of Mr. Biden’s assignment on Wednesday night was to connect with struggling American families and to portray himself and Mr. Obama as products of the middle class who would fight to restore the American dream. He spoke lyrically of riding the train home to Wilmington, Del., every night and imagining the conversations in the homes he passed.

“Like millions of Americans, they’re asking questions as profound as they are ordinary,” he said. “Questions they never thought they would have to ask.” Whether to bring an aging parent into their homes to save money. How to pay for gas and groceries. Whether to defer a college education. How to pay for retirement.

Mr. Biden, who referred to his childhood struggle with stuttering, made a few verbal slips, including referring to Mr. McCain as “George.”

“Freudian slip, folks,” he said. “Freudian slip.”

The self-described “kid from Scranton” paid a moving tribute to his 90-year-old mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden. He said she had taught him honor, loyalty and bravery. She also helped him overcome his stuttering, telling him, as he put it, “it was because I was so bright I couldn’t get the thoughts out quickly enough.”

After his wife and daughter were killed in an auto accident, Mr. Biden said, “she told me, ‘Joey, God sends no cross you cannot bear.’ And when I triumphed, she was quick to remind me it was because of others.”

He added: “My mother’s creed is the American creed: No one is better than you. You are everyone’s equal, and everyone is equal to you.”

So after what seemed like a lackluster first night and a second night that was effectively taken over by Hillary Clinton, it seemed like the Democrats had a good night last night.

Tonight, it all ends with what is already being described as the biggest speech of Barack Obama’s career.

No pressure there.