Tonight is John McCain Is Too Old Night. Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio repeated that McCain is "stuck in the past." The previous speaker, keynoter Mark Warner quoted Thomas Jefferson's letter to John Adams: "I like the dreams of the future better than the histories of the past." The party of the future -- the Democrats -- is promising a green new world. Green jobs have become the party's panacea -- its economic recovery program, its environmental linchpin, its contrast with the Republicans' ongoing obeisance to big oil, its talisman of newness. Can it counter McCain's call for more drilling? Ask me in November.
Update: And McCain is linked to the old energy order, Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana is saying. He voted against solar. He voted against wind. He's arrayed against the elements themselves. Schweitzer is delivering the most blistering attack against McCain so far, and for the Obama campaign, Schweitzer -- who comes across as the Montana rancher he is -- is the right guy to deliver it.
--Harold Meyerson