Well it only took three days of relative boredom and wasted money to ramp up the DNC Convention but last night President Bill Clinton stood up and hit it out of the park. His speech was everything that was good about Senator Clinton’s the night before but more. He went further than any Democrat could have hoped in supporting Obama and was the first and only speaker thus far who created an actual intellectual and philosophical argument for supporting the ticket. Clinton was Clinton and my big question is “WHY DID THE DEMOCRATS NOT SHOW HIM OFF DURING NETWORK COVERAGE.”

Clinton’s attacks against the Republicans and McCain were rather light, but in the end that wasn’t his job. His job was to unite the party, quash the endless media frame that there was a massive schism and bring the house down for Biden. He did it.

After Clinton warmed the crowd up at the 9:00 hour there were some relatively forgettable speeches and lots of downtime until the nominating show of Joe Biden. After an emotion charged video walking the audience through the Senator’s life, Biden took the stage. While he did a good job I have to say the speech was lacking overall. The attacks were soft against McCain whom Biden heaped praise upon. Most of the speech, like all the others thus far, was about linking Bush to McCain while acknowledging the Senator’s stunning personal story and sacrifice for the nation.

The job of the VP candidate is often seen as an attack dog and in this Biden lacked. The Democrats are going to have to do more than run against George Bush. They need a platform, one I still could not see last night. They need an issue and they need a way of connecting their vision of the world to the countries. Iraq has almost entirely been taken out of this convention as an issue. Discussions of the economy center on emotional stories with almost no explanation of policy or solutions. There has been no real philosophical exploration of how the turmoil around the world fits into the lives of the people. Just attacks on oil companies and President Bush.

As in 2000 and 2004 I still have no idea from this convention what makes a Democrat a Democrat. I just know the Dems are not President Bush.

Last night delivered the much lacking and needed energy, tonight needs to deliver more than just the slogan of “change” and the reminder that Barack Obama is not George Bush.