Tonight, Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. It is a historic night. Obama will become the first African American major party candidate for the Presidency.

Ironically, to increase his chances to become the first African American President of the United States, Obama is likely to place less emphasis on the historic nature of his candidacy then the rest of us are. But, on the most basic level, the history will be inescapable. Today is the 45th Anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech ("1963 is not an end, but a beginning"):

More . . .

CNN took over Brooklyn's Bar and Grill outside the Pepsi Center this week. After hiking over viaducts from downtown to get to the Pepsi Center, waiting in 15 minute security lines in 90 degree heat, it's an oasis. [More...]

I'm back home and Joe Biden is about to speak. His son, Attorney General of Delaware, Beau Biden, just gave a rousing speech for him.

Thoughts and updates below.

The best part was when he finished and Barack Obama came out. Obama looked really happy and relaxed.

I think Michelle Obama is Biden's biggest fan.

Your turn.

I'll have some thoughts on Biden when he speaks at 10:30. Share you thoughts here.

This is a Convention Open Thread.

Beau Biden doing a very nice job in the intro for Biden.

This is a subjective thing, but personally, I do not care for Biden's delivery. To me, it is over the top. Maybe it works like gangbusters in Scranton. Does not work for me.

I dunno, I wanted an attack dog, but Biden makes it look like blowhard. Again, this is a subjective thing, but his style ain't working for me. I thought they would smooth him out a bit more than this. The alternating shouting and then into the quiet, emotional voice, too jarring.

Barack Obama arrives. He's definitely a rock star, and I mean that in a good way.

watching now. On all but Biden, he rocked.

Turkana provides a chuckle:

In an article about the Obama campaign's plans and expectations, Marc Ambinder had this amusing little nugget, from Obama election manager David Plouffe:

"All we care about is these 18 states," he said. He repeated, with emphasis, that the campaign does not care about national polling. Instead, the campaign's own identification, registration and canvassing efforts provide the data he uses to determine where to invest money and resources.

Had Clinton been nominated, and had her campaign manager made such a statement, the shrillosphere would once again be flooded with derision about her team considering 32 states to be irrelevant.

Share your impressions. I'll blog President Clinton's speech below the fold at 9.

Big Dog coming up.

Last night Rachel Maddow said that Obama is a rejection of Clintonism. And I wondered, if that is so, then isn't that an argument for Clinton supporters to NOT vote for Obama? To not get over it? After all, if that were true, then the PUMAs would have a point, wouldn't they?

The fact is this is mindless nonsense from Rachel Maddow. Barack Obama is Clintonism Redux. Obama's Post-Partisan Unity Schtick is merely Clinton's 1990s Third Way for the 21st Century. Obama's victory is actually victory for triangulation. But pundit are mindless and they say and do anything to feed their freak show narratives. And Rachel Maddow is certainly among the worst at that.

How about Obama as the new William Jennings Bryan? I kid you not. That is what the Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown asserts:

Obama is the official nominee.

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

If you are in to that sort of thing, it is on C-Span now. You can comment about it here.

Sooo, was it cathartic for you? Me, I hate the delegate system period. Never cared for the roll call. I want a popular vote contest.

The disgraceful Jim Clyburn, can't keep his mouth shut:

Q: During the primary, you suggested that Bill and Hillary's relationship with the black Democratic base had been irreparably damaged. Do you still believe that?

CLYBURN: I simply said that I thought that things were being said and done that could very well make the nomination of our party not worth having. I was around when the Willy Horton ads literally annihilated our candidate for president. That [sort of attack] didn't start out with Republicans; that started out in the Democratic primaries. Right now, we see the McCain campaign doing things that seem to be taken out of the Democratic primary. We see a tightening in this race. And we have nobody and nothing to blame except things that happened in the primary.

Clyburn is simply a liar. By the way, he now falsely smears Al Gore with the Willie Horton lie invented by Republicans in 2000. Do us all a favor Clyburn, STFU.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

I'm leaving for downtown and then the Pepsi Center. I'll have my i-phone and my Flip tv Mino video recorder but no laptop. I'll post my results later tonight.

In the meantime, here's an open thread -- you can talk about the convention, what you had for lunch, or anything else that's of interest to you.

If TalkLeft goes down, here's our backup site to continue the discussion. Don't forget to bookmark as you won't find it here if the site is down.