The unconventional convention, night 2: Biden's nomination is official

Night two of the Democratic National Convention featured the most important procedural part of the convention, the roll call delegate vote to officially nominate Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for president. 

The evening kicked off with actress Tracee Ellis ross putting a personal spin on the Biden-Harris ticket: "As a Black woman, I find myself at a crucial intersection in American politics. For far too long, Black female leadership has been utilized without being acknowledged or valued. But we are turning the tide. Hello, Kamala." 

We heard from some Democratic presidents past or their representatives, Caroline Kennedy and John Schlossberg (which provoked an outpouring of online speculation that the 27-year old grandson of JFK will run for something), Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Clinton uncharacteristically brief and on-script speech yet unsurprisingly scathing of the man who won in 2016 over his wife. He concluded, “you know what Donald Trump will do with four more years: blame, bully and belittle. And you know what Joe Biden will do: build back better.” It was good, but I have to admit that I was hoping to see a little of his typical off script magic, which is sorely missing in these carefully scripted events. It’s an enormous challenge to make a procession of monologues interesting—you can see it in the speakers themselves, many of whom wave their arms and bounce on their feet in an effort to add energy to their speeches. The great Clinton speeches are indeed long, but also have a conversational tone to them which might have worked really well in this setting. 

The roll call vote was a vast improved over the usual crowded convention floor full of people in campaign T-shirts, buttons and wildly decorated hats. By going online, viewers were treated to a tour of the country, and even the world, with delegates casting their votes from iconic locations in their respective states and in some cases, like American Samoa, New Mexico and North Dakota they were even wearing traditional clothing. Why would we want to go back to the raucous but repetitive convention floor?

On the other hand, the nomination always sparks as massive outpouring of cheers in the stadium which was replaced with videos of people cheering from home, including the Bidens with their grandchildren. It’s not quite the same but I certainly don’t have a better idea.

Day two also included more Republicans in an effort to continue the message that Biden is a safe vote for disaffected Republicans. This included a speech from Colin Powell and an emotional video about the friendship between Joe Biden and John McCain.

It all wrapped up with a video about and a speech from Dr. Jill Biden—a woman who provides quite a stark contrast as a potential first lady with Melania Trump: she worked as a full-time professor while serving as second lady.

I’m not sure it’s compelling enough for anyone but the party faithful or political analysts like me, to sit through for over two hours. Most networks cut out some parts and added their own talking heads. It’s a tough one for the party that wants to showcase as many up and coming leaders as possible while there’s always the law of diminishing returns. Also, on night two I’m already thinking, wow, two more to go, but the 2016 convention, as good as it was, also felt like too many days. So, perhaps this is just the first shrinking of the convention and future ones will be even more brief. The parties might need to find better ways to connect with voters more frequently, perhaps at the state level and during midterm cycles.