AP Photo/John Locher
To appreciate the surprising success of opening night at the Democratic National Convention, it helps to appreciate the multiple, overlapping pieces of theater being staged. On one level, party leaders were speaking to the country-to the national audience beyond the hall-drawing the contrast between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and not incidentally the contrast between the two parties.
On that level, Monday night came off well. The Democrats showed that they can behave like grown-ups. They demonstrated how grown-ups deal with the difficult challenge of party unity when the candidate who won the hearts of the party base was a near miss. They demonstrated that they are serious about the multiple challenges afflicting the country in a way that Donald Trump is not.
Democrats have a staggering array of sheer talent. Even those relegated to pre-prime-time warm-up acts-Cory Booker, Al Franken, Kirsten Gillibrand-were impressive as hell. Yet that reality resonated mainly for those in the hall. Except for hard-core political junkies watching gavel-to-gavel coverage, those watching at home did not get to view it.
What people did view, of course, was possibly the best convention speech ever by a first lady. Plagiarize that, Melania! And Elizabeth Warren, sandwiched between Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders, got off some terrific lines at Trump's expense. Both demonstrated Democrats at their best, and the contrast with Trump all but told itself.
But the second level of theater was the tense ballet of opposition and support between Sanders and Clinton. On the leadership level, both succeeded. They averted the kind of open spilt that seemed a real risk as late as Monday afternoon. Clinton first acceded to the inevitable when she dumped DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, healing some wounds in the Sanders camp-but then weirdly and needlessly named DWS honorary campaign chair, stoking a new round of rage.
The moment, which threatened a split yet again, was submerged in the larger drama, and soon passed. Word was put out that the honorary chair would have no power. Yet people scratched their heads once again about Clinton's judgment.
The third piece of really tricky choreography was the dance of Sanders and his own supporters. In watching this dance unfold, we got to appreciate something that baffled many seasoned observers who wondered how an obscure 74-year-old Jewish socialist could very nearly wrest the nomination from the inevitable Hillary Clinton: Bernie Sanders is one hell of a politician.
This became clear, both throughout the day, as Sanders and his top leadership worked to damp down the diehard Never Hillary faction in his own ranks, but especially in his brilliant convention speech. Sanders kept giving his supporters what they wanted to hear-the system is rigged, the movement will continue, vote for me in the roll call (no Hillary by acclamation), we will never give up-but the punch line was that we all had to unite behind Clinton to defeat the greater menace of Donald Trump. He walked the tightrope between defiance and capitulation, with sheer elegance.
By the end of the evening, the Democrats had become-not a picture of perfect unity, but more than unified enough. And what a contrast with the Republicans, where most of the leaders stayed away and the ones who spoke were either unknowns or hypocrites.
Here is the problem-several problems, actually. All of these good people gave Hillary Clinton such a build up-with more still to come from President Obama, from Tim Kaine, from Joe Biden, and from Hillary's husband, the former president-that they will be a tough act for Hillary to follow. When she accepts the nomination Thursday, she will be under pressure to give the best speech of her life, and then some.
Here is the other problem. In order to paper over the stark ideological differences between the Sanders/Warren wing and the Clinton/Wall Street wing of the party, speaker after speaker kept putting words in Clinton's mouth. They made it sound as if Clinton had become a Sanders clone-on trade, on the minimum wage, on breaking up the banks, and a great deal more. And that remains to be seen.
Yet another problem: Sanders himself showed that he can (barely) keep his supporters in line for a convention display of party unity. But after the delegates go home-during the campaign and in November-will they come when he calls?
And one more related problem:
Having done the noble thing and rallied behind the party's nominee, what leverage does the party's progressive wing have on Clinton once the convention is over?
Suppose that the superbly insurgent platform is treated by the candidate as just words?
Hillary Clinton needs to move in a populist direction not just to appease the Sanders-Warren base and boost turnout, but to win the election. In states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where disaffected workers are drawn to Trump, Clinton needs not just to mouth the words but to feel the Bern and to articulate the rage.
Some of her strategists want to give greater focus to states like Florida, Virginia, and Colorado, as insurance against losing the industrial Midwest. Yes, the Democrats need those, too, but she can hardly write off the Heartland.
There will be some early tests. For instance, Clinton now nominally opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But as Barack Obama tees up a vote for TPP in the lame duck session of Congress, will Hillary break with her president loudly and publicly? Will she work the phones privately to tell Democrats in the House and Senate to vote no? Will she make those actions a key and visible campaign activity, to undermine Trump's opportunistic and hypocritical stances on trade?
Will she appoint progressives to key economic posts in her campaign, in contrast to what Barack Obama and her husband did?
And one last problem: What if she doesn't do these things, and more? The tacit threat on the part of Sanders, Warren, and the party left to withhold full-throated support is a bit like Mutually Assured Destruction in a nuclear standoff. Nobody wants to push the button. It would be scant satisfaction to elect Donald Trump.
So the Democrats had a good night, even a better than expected night. But it's a long road ahead.
