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There was much grumbling -- especially among the 15,000 journalists covering the event -- that this display of harmony was a boring contrast to the intrafamily feuds of conventions past. But for all its made-for-TV slickness and We Are the World-type finale, the effort to show that Democrats believe in the American Dream had its moments of authenticity: Senator Al Gore's father scooping up his blond-haired grandson Albert III, 9, whose horrible brush with death was evoked in the Tennessean's eloquent and moving acceptance speech; 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton breaking into a smile of relief after she reclaimed her mother's hand on the jammed podium; Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore dancing like two teenagers to Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop.
The convention showed that the activist tie-dyed Democrats who wrested control of the party in 1968 are grown up now with children and mortgages. Middle America, with its ritual and sentiment and well-tended lawns, is less to be derided on Saturday Night Live than emulated. Four years ago, Clinton could not have been sure that when he recited part of the Pledge of Allegiance in his speech the audience would spontaneously join in and finish the final phrase with him.
The scene on the podium after the two acceptance speeches was like a wedding | reception where the bride and groom fan out to dance with the rest of the family. It was a Norman Rockwell tableau that could persuade older voters that the first all-baby-boomer ticket won't ignore them, signaling that while they may be the younger generation, they are still the type to bring the grandchildren home for the holidays.
Bush's campaign staff back in Washington, wowed by the display, was hit with the realization that Clinton and Gore are prepared to fight for every bit of schmaltzy turf this time around. They learned that Clinton was ready to take aim at the President in what promises to be a brutal fall campaign. One of the most powerful passages in Clinton's acceptance speech was this challenge: "And so I say, George Bush, if you won't use your power to help America, step aside. I will."
No amount of planning could have predicted the unexpected bouquet Ross Perot would throw conventioneers when he cited a revitalized Democratic Party as one reason he was dropping his campaign. Just before 11 a.m. on Thursday, strategist James Carville bounded into Clinton's 14th-floor suite at the Hotel Inter-Continental to announce that Perot was about to hold a news conference. Still dressed in his running shorts and tinkering with his acceptance speech, Clinton jumped up and turned on the television. "He was a little overwhelmed," reported an aide.
Clinton continued revising his speech, adding a few lines inviting Perot's followers into the Democratic fold. Late in the afternoon, when some aides complained that the speech was too long, the candidate defended it by claiming that it had fewer words than Michael Dukakis' 1988 oration. Actually, the Massachusetts Governor's text was shorter, and his lightning-fast diction made his delivery time shorter still. In his own laid-back drawl, Clinton took about 55 minutes to deliver his address. Recalling the fiasco of Clinton's interminable 1988 speech, his verbosity last week seemed on the verge of losing his audience, but a powerful delivery and some surefire applause lines saved the day.