Michelle !!!!

Michelle Obama knocked it out of the park tonight.   I expected her to be good, but she was spectacular !!!    One online headline called it "electrifying, dazzling."

I can't even begin to find words to describe it right now.   The most telling thing was to watch the faces of those listening, as the tv cameras panned over the audience listening to her.   Some were wiping away tears -- not because it was sad, but because she touched so many of their lives with her understanding and her experience.

But every face was rapt in deep engagement;  heads would be nodding in agreement with what she was saying.  And then of course there were cheers -- and a great standing, shouting ovation at the end.

I've read that she wrote the speech herself.   I would say it was as good -- and she was as affecting and just as rousing in her delivery -- as Barack was himself four years ago.

But that's not all.

Julian Castro, keynote speaker who preceded her at the podium, was every bit as good.   The same headline writer (HuffPost) called his speech "sensational."   No question:  as the 37 year old Hispanic mayor of San Antonio, he is going to be a future star of the Democratic party.   He did what Obama did with the same keynote opportunity at the 2004 convention.

And I could name a dozen more speakers, on this first night of the convention, who were better than my expectations:    Lilly Ledbetter, Rahm Emanuel, Tammy Duckworth, Kal Penn, Michelle's brother and Barack's sister, Ted Strickland.   There was not a clunker in the lot.

The whole evening so outshone what the GOP did last week, and the best of their speakers couldn't hold a candle even to the second tier tonight.   It was like a major league team outplaying a minor league one -- totally apart from the policy differences themselves.

Ralph