DNC in Chicago offered energy, talent, hope: Here are 4 key takeaways

     I'm not a political reporter, in the same sense that I am not a sports reporter — I find my passion elsewhere. But just as sometimes I'm called to cover sports, so the Democratic National Convention was too big a story to miss. I spent a very long day Monday, hoovered up everything I needed, and couldn't see a reason to go back, watching the rest on television — which my friend Eric Zorn points out is the way the convention is supposed to be experienced. I ended up writing four columns: an opening day scene setter based on the 1932 convention, a focus on Mayor Brandon Johnson, a look at the protests, and this summary, an assignment running in the paper Sunday. I don't know about you, but I'm more than ready to move on.

     There were so many ways the Democratic National Convention could have gone wrong.
     Start with thousands of impassioned protesters in the streets of Chicago, butting up against a police department that has not always risen to the occasion.
     Add dozens of speakers, many stepping, blinking, onto the national stage for the first time, some of them children. Broadcast live.
     And yet, as they'd say at this summer's other big summer event, the Olympics, the Democrats stuck their landing. The protesters stayed in their lane, mostly. The cops did their job well, even though most of that job involved enduring 12-hour shifts, standing around, waiting.
     Remember where the party was just five weeks ago — a bag full of howling cats tied to the cinder block of President Joe Biden, whose deer-in-the-headlights debate disaster seemed to kill his chances of reelection. and maybe hope for a functioning democracy too.
     Then, Biden did what he should have done a year ago: withdrew.
     And Kamala Harris, his heretofore unexceptional, unnoticed and unloved vice president, locked down the nomination in 24 hours and went from virtual nonentity to adored superstar faster than anyone since Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris.
     Given that dramatic starting point, had the DNC offered four days of Chuck Schumer tossing cards into a hat, the party mood would still have been buoyant. Instead, it was a parade of talent that got labeled with the sports cliche "a deep bench."
     The only way to summarize the four-day party is with a four-item list, one highlight for each night. There isn't even room for Doug Emhoff, the first "second gentleman," who's so comfortable in his skin that he made being a divorced Jewish lawyer from New Jersey sound practically iconic, like being a lumberjack.
     On to the daily highlights:
     Monday: Biden, whose heroic denial of self-interest — or tardy acknowledgment of reality — allowed his party to soar, had his moment in the sun. Well, 47 minutes actually. But he delivered the goods: "We're in a battle for the very soul of America." If that Joe Biden had shown up to the debate, he'd still be the candidate.

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