Hat tip to Peter Robinson.

My Yale classmate Charles Lipson (now teaching law at Chicago) admires the slickness of Slick Willie over at the Huffington Post.

Bill Clinton’s convention speech was a tour de force. He had a difficult task to accomplish, or rather, several difficult tasks, and he performed them as well as any politician could.

His overriding task was to humanize Hillary and reintroduce her to America, for the 37th time. He spent much of his speech doing that, sharing anecdotes of Hillary as a student, a loving daughter from a good Midwestern family, a young woman willing to take chances, and a new mother raising Chelsea—all while working on important policy issues in Arkansas. He subtly depicted her as the leader in their marriage, or at least an equal partner, suggesting he knew how to become a “First Husband” and was ready for the role. He spoke of their meeting in the Yale Law Library, falling in love, giving birth to Chelsea, raising her, and taking her to college, becoming empty nesters.

In short, Bill Clinton depicted a real person in a real marriage. It is widely assumed, of course, that their marriage is a sham, filled with his cheating and her cold fury, held together only by their political ambitions. As Dennis Miller once put it, “Bill and Hillary’s marriage couldn’t have been any more about convenience than if they’d installed a Slim Jim rack and Slurpee machine at the base of their bed.” Bill’s speech was a long, brilliantly-crafted and perfectly-delivered effort to paint over that image and present a new one. …

In sum, he painted a portrait of someone who deserves to be elected, if you believe the portrait. But do you?

Bill’s whole speech led up to that question, and he did not leave it hanging. Using the Tom Sawyer approach he has honed over decades, he asked it directly. He said that he had just described a person who was very different from the person Republicans described last week. That means one of them is real, one’s a cartoon. The question is, which picture is the real Hillary? He answered that question in his quietest, most sincere tones, biting his lip and inviting empathy.

It was the work of a master salesman. He brought the buyers into the showroom, showed them a “great buy, exactly what you need” and pointed out all the bells and whistles. But he cannot close the deal himself. He’s not running; Hillary is, and she lacks Bill’s rhetorical gifts and zest for campaigning. He loves to touch the flesh; she recoils from it. She is a grating, hectoring speaker and a far less effective campaigner than Bill Clinton (or Donald Trump). Now that Bill has primed the customers, the big question is “Can Hillary close the deal?”

Read the whole thing.

Watchdog.org:

The DNC list of “communities” — 14 in all — include African-Americans, Americans with Disabilities, European and Mediterranean Americans, a First Caucus and Faith Caucus, a gay and lesbian caucus and a Latino caucus, a caucus for youth, for seniors and for women.

All-inclusive, right? Of course, as long as you’re, uh, included.

The Pew Research Center — in a poll of 2,373 registered voters this spring — found women, in general, supported President Obama, 53 percent to 40 percent. Among 221 black people — it did not delineate between black men and black women — 95 percent favored Obama. The poll had a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points.

But the inclusion makes an important omission: white men, particularly those of working age, say between 30 and 64.

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Even former-Conservative now-Progressive, turncoat Andrew Sullivan, convention-blogging at New York Magazine, grew uncomfortable early on last night with all the identity-group pandering.

9:15 p.m. A reader is exactly where I am:

I left the Republican party last week after 20 years of voting for, working for, and giving to its candidates. I forgot why I was for it. I heard nothing about the rule of law, limited government, or free enterprise. It has become a grotesque alternation between ambiguous bigotry and overt bigotry; I wanted nothing to do with it. I almost forgot why I am a conservative.

Tonight it is all coming rushing back to me. Is there nowhere to go for someone who is pro-immigrant and pro-rule of law? Also, this parade of identity politics is condescending and embarrassing for everyone participating. Why can’t we just treat people like people? It would be nice if the Democrats had some African-Americans, Hispanics, gays, or women speak who did not think that their race/orientation/sex was the only interesting thing about themselves or even the most interesting thing about themselves. Couldn’t they have had a disabled girl who was not so entirely predictably and tediously just another flavor of victim?

I remain politically homeless.

Me too.

Of course, this did not actually keep Andrew from instantly reversing himself and reaffirming his loyalty to leftism.

But we nonetheless have to back the Clintons this time. The survival of liberal democracy is in the balance.

Stephen Green is chickening out. He cannot face the hangover that playing would produce.