Thank you, Bill Clinton.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Bill Clinton’s speech last night put a rousing cap on an otherwise lukewarm evening, reminding me why I used to avoid convention coverage entirely.  I was thinking God for the advent of DVR so I could cherry pick the good parts and take a break to play trivia with friends at a local watering hole.  (We won, btw.)  In all honesty, it would have been hard to live up to night one, anyway.

That’s not to say that no one else stepped up.  Sister Simone Campbell tore up the house in a way I didn’t expect from a nun.  (Guess I’ve got to get over some preconceived notions.)  And Sandra Fluke, who I’ve only seen in the more low-key environs of news program interviews, showed us how it’s done.  She struck gold saying that when a young woman is attacked, President Obama “thinks of his daughters, not his delegates or donors.”  Take that, Governor Romney.

But Clinton wasn’t just good at the show.  He said things I’ve been dying to hear the Dems hit the Republicans on.  Clinton was the perfect surrogate for the purpose.  Not only is he wildly popular, he’s far enough removed from the White House to lay it all out for us and close enough to be a voice we’ll listen to.  The Republicans ensured that when they started holding him up as the kind of reasonable Democrats they’d like to work with (despite all historical evidence to the contrary).

And he did.  Point by point he shredded the GOP talking points.  At last, someone they couldn’t accuse of being a whiner.  Well, Jennifer Rubin tried, but she made no sense.

Now it’s out there on video, topped with a bow to and a hug for President Obama:  The Republicans screwed up the economy so badly that no one could have fixed it in four years and a Romney administration would take us right back down the hole we’ve been trying to climb out of since 2009 – with drastic cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Let’s see how fast the right turns on Bill again.  More important, let’s see if the swing voters are paying attention.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.

On to the main event.  Take us home tonight, Mr. President.