I was less than impressed with the opening of the DNC on Monday and day two was only slightly better.

The first thing I have to note is pacing. If I were running the convention from the very moment networks kicked in at 10:00pm until 11:00pm when they start pulling back would be filled with entertainment and discussions of actual things the Party plans on achieving. Instead there is a lot of downtime between events when the audience, frankly looks bored. It is bad enough the audience generally looks disinterested during the few hours before but once network coverage hits, they should have something.

Worst of all last night the keynote speaker wasn’t in the broadcast lineup. You could catch him on cable or PBS but the big three missed him. In some ways it was probably good for the Democrats. Mark Warner preached a nice sermon on togetherness but did little to excite the crowd or give reason for those watching to jump on the Obama train. That left Hillary Clinton as the only highlight for viewers.

After a powerful introduction video that looked style-wise the way her campaign commercials should have looked all along, Clinton herself fired up the audience by going through hers supporters list of achievements and conceding the loss while embracing her competition. While she gave ample direction to her voters to unite the party, she gave little reasoning beyond continuing her work for followers to stay the course. There was no explanation for viewers beyond the notion that Obama could continue her fight.

While she mentioned McCain as a friend before declaring he was wrong for the country, she also gave little in the way of substantive attacks against him. Instead she followed the Democratic line of argument which can be summed up as “McCain = Bush = Bad.”

Finally she offered no refute of her endless attacks against Senator Obama. She did not argue for his strength as a commander-in-chief or give an indication as to why he is now experienced enough for the 3AM call. This was a hard speech to make and no one could expect her to give a full refutation of every campaign argument, but there was nothing that spoke to Obama’s true nature, her personal experience with him or why she now believes he can lead. A viewer could easily assume there is no closeness between the two and Clinton, while hoping for her part, was most likely hoping for a chance at a return in the future more than for a titanic fight in support of Obama.

While the media seemed to delight for a time after the speech and while Clinton the job she was tagged for, I don’t know that she reached many people or advanced a line of argument.

I have to admit, I am looking forward to hearing the other Clinton tomorrow night more than anything else this week. The convention has almost 100% steamrolled over his legacy and it will be interesting to watch and see if he attempts to bring it back into the spotlight.