The Democratic Convention Yesterday: Other Speeches and Other Stars of the Night

The delegates were craving red meat and they certainly got it last night. Lilly Ledbetter, for which a pay equity bill was named in her honor, and signed by Barack Obama within the first few days of his presidency, was one of the speakers. Don’t even let the Alabama accent throw you.

Deval Patrick of Massachusetts had to clean up Mitt Romney‘s mess after he vacated the governor’s seat, much like President Obama trying to save the country after George W. Bush presided over its economic failure. (This wasn’t the only business failure Bush had presided over, giving the lie to the suggestion that the Republicans have been promoting that a businessman would make a better president.)

Tammy Duckworth is running for Congress against a Republican reprobate, Joe Walsh (not the singer), who has refused to pay child support for several years, and has been running his mouth about Duckworth’s war wounds and other weird right-wing claptrappery. Duckworth is a triple-amputee who served in the Iraq War as a helicopter pilot. She was born in Thailand to an American father whose bloodlines include an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War, and a Thai woman of Chinese ancestry, in 1968. Formerly Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, she is currently Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. She is a member of the Illinois National Guard with her husband, Major Bryan W. Bowlsbey, who is also an Iraq War veteran. This is her second try for Congress.

The party spotlighted the new breed with keynote speaker San Antonio Mayor Juliàn Castro. Castro is being called a Spanish-speaking Obama, and is being groomed to hold future national office, perhaps even the presidency itself. He could indeed give Marco Rubio a run for his money. He has a twin brother who is also running for Congress.

And posthumously, Edward M. Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, also appeared on stage. This tribute documentary managed to take some interesting swipes at Mitt Romney, who ran for the Senate against the last Kennedy in the mid-Nineties. You can see that early on, the Republican challenger refused to take a principled stand on anything.

And you never thought Ted Strickland had it in him.

No wonder folks were nearly delirious by the time Michelle was half-way through her speech. This is an exciting convention.