DNC speakers deliver despite digital format

In another profound way that the coronavirus pandemic has upended American life, the Democratic National Convention started with no convening.

Instead, Democrats opted for the first virtual convention as the party begins the formal process of nominating Joe Biden as its candidate for president.

The jam-packed two-hour event combined pre-recorded and live material that lent itself to including many notable politicians and a slew of other prominent voices including family members of George Floyd, and clinical staff working on the front lines of the public health crisis.

While the average American may have preferred reading their remarks into a webcam, the headliners lost an opportunity to interact with thousands of voters and delegates on the traditional convention stage.

National political reporter for the Associated Press, Bill Barrow, said Michelle Obama, the former first lady, took her memorable catchphrase  'When they go low, we go high" from the DNC fours years ago to a new level this time around.

"Tonight she went after President Trump and his version of America, his vision for America in much more direct terms and even recalled that line and said explicitly, 'That doesn't mean that you sit silent in the face of viciousness,' she called it," Barrow said.

As one of the most popular women in the world, the former first lady's words carried added weight and set a tone for a convention that will try to make the election a referendum on the president's character as much as his record.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the leader of America's progressive movement, delivered an unqualified endorsement of Joe Biden and a harsh indictment of Trump.

"Even as Biden has moved left on health care, on college tuition assistance, on overhauling bankruptcy laws. He hasn't gone all the way where a lot of the progressive movement wants him to go," Barrow said.

"Bernie Sanders took that head-on today, but he defended Biden on some of the policy fronts, but still made his argument mostly about Trump and this being, in Sanders view, an existential election. And so there's still some question there, how progressive see that."

The first chunk of the convention's primetime hour was dominated by a quartet of Republicans -- part of Democrats' effort to emphasize the breadth of their party's coalition, and implicitly contrast it with the narrower one Trump has built.

The four prominent former Republican officials all slammed Trump and praised Biden, hoping to speak to what the Biden campaign believes is a big swath of the electorate that remains uncomfortable with the president.

Biden's ability to unite the country has been a centerpiece of his campaign, and on Monday night Democrats tried to show that by cramming as wide an ideological spectrum as possible into a single hour.

"(Democrats) the example of the Trump presidency that the nation is watching offers them a pretty wide path and ability to get a lot of different kinds of voters to sign onto the same campaign," Barrow said.

That open-door approach for Democrats is an implicit contrast with Trump, who is notorious for slamming any Republican who publicly criticizes him and whose convention next week is not likely to feature as wide an ideological range.

It makes it harder to agree on a governing platform besides Don't-Be-Trump.

But Democrats are gambling on that being sufficient to win.