Longtime readers of this blog know I have been in the tank for Obama for a while. In Hypothetical World my candidates were Gore and then Dodd, but among the feasible candidates there was really no question who I supported. Hillary I like, and think she would have made a fine president (and perhaps still may), but put succinctly, I am so sick of this dynasty crap.

And call me naive, but despite the (supposed) narrowing polls there's still no doubt in my mind that, barring electoral shenanigans, Obama's gonna win it. McCain is, to my mind, some sort of horrible Dole / Kerry hybrid, doomed by the utter lack of enthusiasm he engenders in his party.

Barack still has the task of introducing himself to the vast majority of America which is only now starting to pay real attention to the presidential race. It'll be interesting to see how he does so.

6:00: Good, if muted, speech by Al Gore. I've seen him get really riled up while speaking, but this was him in campaign mode, pulling his punches and just wonking-out up there. Second opinion, courtesy of The Queen: "As soon as Al Gore starts talking, I stop listening."

6:12: Who is this non-Obama person, and why is she talking ... ?

By the way, I busy playing Settlers of Catan last night, which is why I wasn't able to liveblog Clinton or Biden's speeches. Saw them both after the fact, though. Bill, it seemed to me, pulled some sort of crafty triple-cross; like, "Give me in a pre-prime time spot, will they? Well I'm going to give such a kick-ass stemwinder that they'll be wracked with agonizing regret for having stuck me in the six o'clock slot." Mission accomplished, Big Dog.

Biden: Yeah, whatever. He'll eviscerate whomever he faces in the debates, but that speech was a yawner.

Now there's someone else speaking, and he too, by all appearances, is not Obama. I feel tricked, like going to the cinema at the published time and getting 20 minutes of ads before the feature film.

6:22: Speak of the devil, it's Joe Biden again. Time to read Go, Dog! Go! to Squiggle.

6:30: Oh jeeze, who are these people? Delegates? I gotta say, that dog party was looking a lot more lively that the democratic party, right now.

6:36: TV is on mute. A woman with indigo hair is speaking, possibly an X-man of some sort.

6:50: TV still on mute. The mouth of PBS commentator Mark Shield is moving and in my head I hear the voice of Droopy Dog.

6:57: Dick Durban is now introducing Obama, and just bad-mouthed cold pizza. WAY TO LOSE MY VOTE THERE, CHAMP.

7:00: "And now there will be a video, to introduce Barack Obama." Up next: the cast of Gossip Girl introducing Barack Obama, followed by the 1976 Barber Of The Year (West Division), who will introduce Barack Obama.

7:08: I want a framed picture of that portrait of Obama and his grandfather. Also: whenever he says "the Fat Cats" I just want to pinch his cheeks, it's so adorable.

7:10: Obama just came out, and the sound engineer is probably already fired. It sounds like 17 of the 60,000 people in attendance are applauding.

7:12: Apparently Obama is going to utter one "thank you" for each person in attendance before beginning.

7:14: Accepted the nomination, thanked Hillary Clinton, thanked Bill Clinton. Then stopped for a moment, pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket, and crossed the first three items off his to-do list.

7:16: Lapel pin.

7:19: Confidential to audience: when he says "Veterans are sleeping on the streets" you're not supposed to chap and cheer.

7:20: "On November 4th, we must stand up and say 'eight is enough'." Including that joke does not reflect well on his judgment.

7:21: "too much mccain. too little obama" What he said.

7:27: This speech really is for the benefit for those who have not paid attention to the race thus far. If you've been following the campaign at all, you've heard all this before.

7:30: Okay, here we go. He's mentioning actual policy, and started with taxes. #2, taxes. #3, taxes. #4, end dependence on foreign oil.

7:33: Buh? Did he just endorse nuclear power? Ballsy and awesome.

7:35: Little hearts float out of the top of my head when Obama speaks about Big Dreams.

7:38: McCain could just repeat this portion of the speech at the RNC, if the RNC still stood for (actual) conservatism.

7:40: Just openly questioned McCain's temperament. Oh man, I can't wait for the debates. If McCain wears his cranky pants that day, that could be the end of it right there.

7:45: Each ten minute block of this speech is better than the last.

7:50: Bumpersticker manufactures around the nation are scrambling to get "CHANGE HAPPENS" decals on the assembly line now.

7:52: Keeps saying "promisssssss"; sounds like Gollum.

7:55: Obama is totally emulating the Dr. King speaking-style while talking about MLK. I wonder if that's on purpose or, like, when you talk to a Brit and unconsciously lapse into an English accent.

7:56: That ended very ... abruptly. Suddenly The Queen and I are sitting in our living room, drinking beer, and listening to country music against our will.

7:58: The PBS pundits are all, like, "I'm not ... sure ... what's going on .."

That said, the second half was great, with a lot of attention paid to Big Ideas and unity--something we haven't seen much of recently, as the Obama campaign has been bogged down in responding to the fusillade of negative messages coming from McCain. Hopefully they will again fly the banner of Hope going forward, and not get suckered into these rope-a-dope tit-for-tat flamewars.