First step for Democrats: rousing the faithful

His name was barely mentioned, but President Bush may have had the biggest role in Monday night's kickoff to the Democratic National Convention. The man who four years ago pledged to be a "a uniter, not a divider" acted as the unseen glue, bringing together a star-studded array of Democratic leaders determined to make him a one-term president.

How well did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton do Monday night toward that end? The next 100 days will tell.

But it's the next three days - leading up to John Kerry's speech accepting his party's nomination - that could be most crucial.

With the country starkly polarized, Kerry needs to show that he's a solid alternative to Bush - not only to that thin sliver of undecided voters but also to those moderate Republicans who may be sufficiently put off by a GOP they feel leans too sharply toward the Christian right and neoconservatives.

The first step in that effort is rousing the Democratic faithful, getting them energized, not just in opposition to Bush, but with enthusiastic support for Kerry. More than four months after dominant primary victories secured his nomination, Kerry remains largely unknown. Monday night's convention events sought to paint the Kerry portrait to the nation - or at least its politically minded television viewers - adding brush strokes of strength, competence, experience, and vision to the Massachusetts senator's persona.

If there was going to be a red-meat speech Monday night, Al Gore seemed most likely to give it. Unrestrained by any chance that his political career might be revived, he's been breathing fire in his recent speeches.

Bashing Bush for alleged lies, deceits, and general mismanagement of the country in a time of war, he has growled and bellowed his message in a manner Howard Dean, whom he first endorsed, might have found admirable.

But Monday night he was a subdued ex-vice president, offering relatively gentle criticisms of the incumbent whom he never mentioned by name.

It was left to Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter to wage war on the Bush II presidency. Speaking with quiet fury, Mr. Carter noted how the days after 9/11 had brought "an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world."

"But in just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as all this goodwill has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations," he said. "Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combating terrorism."

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