Johnny B. Good!

Slate's William Saletan was at the Democratic Convention last night, and this is what he has to say about John Edwards electrifying speech, 

"For three nights, I've sat in the periodical press section with cynical and often disinterested reporters. Tonight, however, our section is packed. For the first time all week, journalists are standing up all around me, craning to see the speaker as he strides onto the stage. This tells you all you need to know about the media's relationship with Edwards. Their lips say nothing, but their necks say yes, yes, yes...
 
The speech is familiar to anyone who has heard Edwards speak during the primaries...But tonight's only important target is the folks at home who haven't heard him before...What matters is that Edwards says several things the Democratic ticket urgently needs to say, and he says them perfectly.
 
He begins with the Democratic buzzwords of the year: values, faith, family...Coming from Edwards, they sound natural, in part because he addresses them not to the audience as a whole but to his parents, who are in attendance. "You taught me" these values, he tells his mom and dad...
 
"You taught me that there's dignity and honor in a hard day's work," Edwards tells his mother and his father. "You taught me ... you never look down on anybody." I follow him through the advance text that's been handed out to reporters. He keeps ad libbing, substituting the second person for the third, or changing the plural to the singular, or turning second-person statements into second-person questions. He's personalizing the speech.
 
...He speaks of a mother who can't pay her bills because her husband has been called up for National Guard duty in Iraq. "She thinks she's alone," says Edwards. "But tonight in this hall and in your homes, you know what? She's got a lot of friends." The crowd roars its approval. In the next breath, Edwards promises not to bring our troops home but to "bring him home"—the woman's husband. Everything is singular because stories are what people understand. So when you return home and pass a mother on her way to work, he tells the convention, "You tell her, hope is on the way."
 
Edwards tells America that Kerry volunteered three times for his country: first for military service, then for Vietnam, then for dangerous Swift boat duty. He recalls how Kerry pulled a soldier from a river under fire and on another occasion turned his boat toward the enemy and beached it to take out the threat. What Edwards adds is a concise summation of why the story matters: "Decisive, strong—is this not what we need in a commander in chief?"
 
On economics, Edwards takes a subject that has been droned to death at the convention and sharpens it into a weapon that can pry culturally conservative voters away from the GOP. "A job is about more than a paycheck," he says. "It's about dignity and self-respect. Hard work should be valued in this country, so we're going to reward work, not just wealth." Responsibility, he argues, implies reciprocal responsibility. "Their families are doing their part," Edwards says of full-time workers. "It's time we did our part."
 
On national security, too, he hits the right points in the right way. "We will take care of them, because they have taken care of us," he says of veterans. To al-Qaida, he delivers with bull's-eye precision the words millions of nervous voters have waited to hear from the Democratic ticket: "You cannot run. You cannot hide. We will destroy you."
 
Edwards slows down as he utters these words because he understands that they're the most important moment of the night. At other junctures, he signifies crucial statements and quiets the crowd not by raising his voice but by lowering it. He does this when he turns the discussion to racial discrimination. He does it again when he turns to national security. We must unite the country, he says, with a descent into hushed gravity, "because we are at war." He does it again when he speaks of soldiers wounded in Iraq. "They need their mother to tie their shoe," he says. "Their husband to brush their hair. Their wife's arm to help them cross the room." The hall goes absolutely silent..."

Senator John Edwards gave a great speech last night, a terrific speech.  And the scary thing is, I've seen him perform much better then he did last night.  Republicans beware..."Hope is on the Way!"