Last night was the big night for Hillary's speech. Concerns abounded as to whether she would be able to convince the PUMAs to get behind their party's presumptive nominee. The results were as good as could be expected. There were other speeches earlier in the evening that were also quite good, sadly missed by anyone watching anything other than PBS or C-SPAN.

Hillary spent close to half of her speech talking about her own campaign. Perhaps that was a last bit of meat to toss to her supporters. She wrapped that up by saying that both she & Obama supported the same things and that the only way to get that was by voting Democrat in Nov.

The last part of her speech was much better, where she challenged her supporters to think about whether they supprted her campaign just for her as a person, or for the causes she champions:

She trashed McCain. She discussed the women's suffrage movement, hopefully reinforcing the point that voting for Obama would help continue to drive that forward, and McCain would stall it. She quoted Harriet Tubman:

I hope it was as inspiring to her supporters as it was to me.

Some of the other speakers were great too. Dennis Kucinich was electrifying. I can't seem to find the text of his speech, but you can watch it here, in case you missed it:



Brian Schweitzer (Governor of MT) stood in for the dearly departed Ann Richards and got the crowd roaring with:

The Party's party continues today (and tonight) with more speeches. The most highly (and nervously) anticipated of course is from the Big Dawg himself - Bill Clinton. He was requested to keep to the theme of the evening, which is National Security. Clinton wanted to talk about domestic issues. Perhaps he'll find a way to tie them together (what? - our country's financial security isn't a national security issue?).

The keynote speaker of course will be Joe Biden, in what will surely be a rip-roaring evisceration of Bush and McCain's disastrous foreign policy stances. Those in the front rows might want to wear raincoats to keep from being splashed with blood.

Also on the list are Governor Bill Richardson and Senators Evan Bayh, John Kerry and Jay Rockefeller. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Convention home state Senator Ken Salazar, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, and Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) along with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Representative Patrick Murphy (D-PA) and Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth.

It should be a great night for the politically addicted.