How Barack Obama Stole the Democratic Convention from Hillary Clinton

Full disclosure: My eyes watered a bit during Barack Obama's long, wide-ranging description and defense of America at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night. It was a sympathetic response, perhaps, to the thousands of teary eyes around me—the president's included—or maybe just some kind of innate vulnerability to the Capra-esque emotional patriotism. I'm sure the speech will be picked apart ad nauseam by the political pundits tasked with that job, denounced by Obama's opponents on both the right and left as they drill into specific questions about his claimed legacy and praise of his would-be Democratic successor.

My eyes, though, idiots that they are, just sort of did their own thing. They'd never seen someone control an entire arena of people like that, not in real life. It was a reminder that Obama could have been a preacher, or a stand-up comedian—but instead, he became president. And now, he's Hillary Clinton's most powerful weapon.

His speech Wednesday was the most compelling rebuttal Democrats have laid out so far to Donald Trump and the apocalyptic vision of America that he offered at the Republican National Convention last week. Of course, most of the speakers in Philadelphia have gone after Trump; before Obama took the stage Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden had already effectively called the real estate mogul a dangerous idiot, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg had labeled him a shyster—"I know a con when I see one," he told the audience sagely—and Clinton's own vice presidential nominee, Virginia senator Tim Kaine, had tested a bumbling but surprisingly funny impression of the Republican nominee.

But Obama, who is not prone to hatchet jobs, instead presented a deeper, more intellectual contrast to Trump's fearmongering claim that America is broken and he's the only one who can fix it. "America is already great," the president told the rapturous delegates. "America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump."

The country, Obama continued, draws its strength from people like his Kansan grandparents and their small-town ancestors. "They didn't like show-offs. They didn't admire braggarts or bullies," he said. "They didn't respect mean-spiritedness, or folks who were always looking for shortcuts in life. Instead, they valued traits like honesty and hard work. Kindness and courtesy. Humility, responsibility, helping each other out. That's what they believed in. True things. Things that last. The things we try to teach our kids."

That kind of laundry list of flat-state virtues can easily come off as hokey or cliché. And the next section of Obama's speech, in which he suggested that those values are fundamental to the American experiment, could be scoffed off as standard-issue political rhetoric, even as he built to an anti-Trump applause line: "That's why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end."

What made the speech powerful was that it was essentially a paean to quiet strength, a subject that has been sorely ignored in an unusually loud election season. A video introducing Obama praised him for his empathy, preparation, and calmness in moments of crisis—and while any kind of hagiography has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's true that Obama is essentially the anti-Trump. No bluster, no violence or end times in his rhetoric, no promises to build monstrosities or break the world apart. Just steady pragmatism that attempts to advance an agenda through the slow, grinding steps of governance.

"It can be frustrating, this business of democracy," Obama said at one point. "When the other side refuses to compromise, progress can stall. Supporters can grow impatient and worry that you're not trying hard enough, that you've maybe sold out."

This was an implicit reference to the progressives who have spent the week protesting the coronation of Clinton as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. Dozens of Bernie Sanders delegates walked out of the convention in protest on Tuesday, and it was presumably Sanders supporters who heckled both Kaine and Obama with chants against the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership when the two men addressed the arena Wednesday.

Naturally, Obama praised Clinton effusively, calling her the "woman in the arena," a reference to an old Teddy Roosevelt line, and saying "there has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America." But he also defended Clinton from her left-leaning critics, addressing Bernie diehards who are threatening to stay home on election day, or cast their ballots for Green Party candidate Jill Stein:

"If you're serious about our democracy, you can't afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue," he chided Democrats. "You've got to get in the arena with her, because democracy isn't a spectator sport," he said. Earlier, he made a similar point, saying, "Even when you're 100 percent right, getting things done requires compromise… democracy doesn't work if we constantly demonize each other."

Obama has critiqued partisan purity before, of course—his "purple states" speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention that launched his national political career was about just that. Some Sanders supporters would surely call Obama out for being too quick to compromise on progressive priorities on issues like healthcare, free trade, and foreign wars. But after a month of terrible news and a Republican convention that painted a portrait of America as on the brink of collapse, a dose of Obama's optimism was powerful, even empowering.

Trump, Obama said, is "selling the American people short. We are not a fragile or frightful people. Our power doesn't come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order. We don't look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations first put to paper right here in Philadelphia all those years ago." When he then launched into the preamble of the Constitution, the crowd roared with approval.

They cheered for Clinton too, naturally, and at the end, when she made a surprise appearance onstage to receive a hug from Obama, the audience devolved into a happy bedlam. But this wasn't Clinton's night. When Obama gives a speech like this, it's always going to be his night and his party.

With the exception of a few Sanders diehards, everyone in the convention hall on Wednesday will likely be casting ballots for Clinton come November. But you had to wonder how many people agreed with a small voice that yelled out, during a quiet moment in Obama's speech: "Don't leave us."

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.