While some of my colleagues may not agree, I thought Hil’s big moment was a very good speech which contained some subtle hat tips—if you paid any attention.

Hillary’s not nearly as fluid as Michelle Obama, Barack, or her own husband, in terms of delivery. She’s kind of stiff and stilted and pauses at the wrong moments, and sometimes loses the chance to get audience interaction because she’s moving ahead too fast. She doesn’t have the ease in front of people that comes to a lot of politicians naturally. But she’s gotten a helluva lot better over time.

My biggest problem with her speech: it contained the laundry list of Democratic platforms—reeling off stuff about saving jobs, expanding health care, environmental greening, that they became rather murky. At one point, I thought she was going to promise that Obama would be able to deliver a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Also the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus exist, too.

I believe if she asked us to vote for Barack Obama any more than she did she would just look like she was being pimped out. There are those who disagree and think that nothing less than a speech consisting of 20 minutes of the refrain, “I support Barack Obama! I support Barack Obama! I support Barack Obama!”  would have been acceptable. Terry McAuliffe just had a good point on MSNBC; no other candidate who came in second during the Primary has worked as hard for the winner as Hillary has.

As it was, she stood to lose her dignity if she took it too far; it’s almost as if they want Hil to become a submissive and repent for her sins of being, you know, powerful. I don’t like this continued insistence that she should be deferential, that she shouldn’t acknowledge her own tremendous accomplishments, her supporter’s tremendous influence, that because she she is a woman, she should be simmer down and behave herself. (Might as well add, young lady.)

Some subtle hat tips:

She gave a nod to her supporters in Puerto Rico and the territories which garnered lots of screams. This goes right to the jugular of the Obama campaign; they need to get Hillary’s Hispanic followers on board if they want to win.

She had a line when she was talking about civil rights, something something, gay rights, and though she didn’t emphasize the words, the entire conventional hall picked up on it and gave it sustained shouts. I think this could be capitalized on more for the Dems. The gay rights issues might be actually swinging in the Dems’ direction.

Her line about “it’s fitting that McCain and Bush will be in the Twin Cities next week—you can’t hardly tell the apart!” was a zinger. It was good to see her go in attack dog mode. I was starting to worry that the Dems were just gonna stand around giving each other hugs and puppy kisses all week long.

I also like watching Bill watch Hill. He mouthed the words, “I love you, I love you, I love you!” over and over before she started. And he gave the thumbs up when she delivered another zinger, “No way, no how, no McCain,” and said to his friends, “That was a good line!”

Of course, this being Slick Willie, you never know if what he’s doing is a true reaction or is just for the cameras.