First Night Reax

Matt Welch thought the Democrats blew it:

The Democratic Party has just blown almost one-quarter of its convention on some of the most tepid personal-trivia testimonials and no-really-they-watched-Brady-Bunch crapola I have heard since my last Amway convention. Only with much less spirit. Wait, your mother loved you? IZ VOAT DIMOKRAT!

The Republicans kicked the stuffing out of the Dems in last year's convention season, in part due to an uproarious and combative opening night. Can Democrats even hit a ball off a tee without irritating the hell out of everybody?

Jonathan Chait:

It's possible that the calculation was that they had to present her with a soft image, and so they couldn't have any red meat on her night -- that it was worth sacrificing a night to have a knockout Michelle Obama speech. Who knows? Maybe it's worth it.

Marc:

Could the Obama campaign have found a more compelling Republican to kick off the primetime hour? Yes they could have.

Jonah Goldberg:

I thought she did exactly what she needed to do, said what she needed to say and avoided saying the sorts of partisan, hard-hitting stuff she normally says on the stump that would have violated the first-do-no-harm rule. It was a nice speech, well delivered and not so over-the-top with her love of country refrains that it felt forced. Whether it made much of a difference over the long haul I have no idea.

Ezra Klein:

I can't decide if the faux-intimacy of Daddy tele-parenting in the middle of the convention was a bit too precious. The beginning was good -- "now you know why I asked her out so many times. You want a persistent president." -- but the "look after mommy and the girls bit" felt staged. On the other hand, I'm a cynical, coastal elite type and could just be insufficiently appreciative of camp.

Jason Zengerle:

Michelle Obama introduced herself as a sister, a wife, a mother, and a daughter--which are all incredibly important identities. But those identities don't reveal her full person--the Princeton and Harvard Law grad, the corporate attorney, the hospital executive--which were parts of her life that she barely mentioned. Instead, she gave us predictable pap like "the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago." Was her speech better than, say, Teresa Kerry's cringe-inducing performance from four years ago? No doubt. But watching her speak--and thinking back on some of the remarks she made earlier in the campaign--you got the sense there was so much more she could have said.