Diary of a Democratic Delegate - Day Two

It was Detroit night in Charlotte as speaker after speaker, including headliner President Bill Clinton, used the auto rescue as "exhibit A" at Wednesday's Democratic convention second session. Delegates from across America, like myself, opened the day at 7 a.m. with state caucuses where we cast individual votes for president, and we ended the day more than 18 hours later with the announcement of state votes cast for the renomination of President Barack Obama. - - - IN BETWEEN, dozens of meetings and caucuses filled up the day until the 5 p.m. gavel of the full session at the Time Warner Arena. At the session, the build-up to the Clinton speech added further patches to the party's message quilt. Congressman Cleaver of KC and Senator Mikulski of Maryland gave particularly impassioned speeches. The audience was also whipped up by Sister Simone Campbell, of the Nuns on the Bus, who did a terrific job of declaring true Gospel imperatives -- and stating that the GOP budget fails the moral test. I love her!  -  - - EVERYBODY TALKED ABOUT DETROIT, and when UAW President Bob King spoke the entire hall was filled with signs noting that the President saved 1.1 million auto jobs. Since I have been so out-there on this issue, I did lots of media through the day, including, amazingly the Fox radio network and the Fox TV Business channel. Even the corporate speakers - the founders of Costco, eBay and CarMax - touched on the industry and how it is a critical part of our economy. Amen. - - - THE PENULTIMATE SPEAKER  was Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who said that if elected the Reeps would pulverize financial regulations, voucherize Medicare and vaporize Obamacare. She was terrific and effective,  but cool and professorial compared to the wrap-up speaker, President Clinton, who gave a masterful defense of his party's ticket.  - - - CLINTON BLEW THE ROOF of the place with a well-written and well-delivered case for the Democratic administration. Like a skillful debater or a winning defense attorney, he went point by point in destroying arguments made in Tampa. He talked about the outright lies the GOP is telling about Medicare, welfare reform and their willingness to cooperate. And he made the case that Obama's team faced a situation much worse than most realized. Clinton said the GOP argument this fall comes down to this: We left him a total mess, but he hasn't cleaned them up fast enough, so we have to fire him. Amazing! . . .  He talked about how the GOP has blown the budget, created debt and now wants to blame Democrats. I love this one: He talked about how in the last 52 years, 66 million jobs have been created -- 24 million in the 28 years under Rs and 42 million in the 24 years under Democrats. . . .He wrapped up by saying this is the basic difference between the parties: "We believe we are all in this together. They believe you're on your own." - - - SO, ONE MORE DAY, more speeches - including one from the President- more networking, more organizing. Then these delegates and the thousands of others who descended on Charlotte this week will go home to carry the message to their neighbors. And maybe get some rest.