Allow me to take off my partisan hat for a moment and try to give a coldly analytical view of the Democratic convention at the halfway point.

It seems to me that the major themes of the convention have largely been subsumed by the Clinton drama and that the more the Obama camp tries to assuage the hurt feelings of the PUMA’s, the Hillraisers, and the bitter end Hillaryites, the more they become resistant to the call for unity. Frankly, I don’t know what else the Obama people could be doing to rectify this situation. They have bent over backwards to accommodate the wishes of Hillary’s campaign and, by extension, her supporters. And all that they seem to be getting for their trouble are leaks about how “arrogant” they are and how they have been disrespectful to Hillary and her supporters.

What this has done is elevate the level of tension in the hall so that rather than coming off excited and confident, the Democrats seem hesitant and worried. And the speeches – with a couple of notable exceptions – haven’t helped matters.

True, political oratory is a lost art on both sides of the aisle and I expect the GOP convention to feature equally snooze-worthy addresses. But if you look at the major addresses so far, you can be forgiven for being a little perplexed.

The success of the Kennedy and Michelle Obama speeches can be attributed to their emotional appeal on a personal level and not to how they fit into any overall attack strategy or even how they fulfilled the particular theme of Monday evening – “One Nation.” Yes, the minor addresses did that quite nicely with a wonderful rainbow of people testifying to how the last 8 years have been detrimental to America. But no one saw those speeches unless you were watching C-Span or PBS. The Kennedy-Michelle speeches were personal triumphs and dramatic, heart tugging political theater. But what did they accomplish for the Obama campaign?

Just for contrast, look at the first night of the 2004 GOP convention. Giuliani and John McCain brought the crowd to their feet with attacks on Kerry and the Democrats. The Rudy speech had the dual kicker of 9/11 still being relatively fresh in people’s minds and the convention being held in New York City. McCain’s ringing endorsement of Bush that night contrasted with Hillary’s rather desultory unity speech last night tells the story.

I’m not the only one mystified by the first night’s speeches. James Carville, Paul Begala, and other partisan Democratic commentators also talked about the lack of a unifying message and the fact that the Democrats were wasting time by not going after McCain and the Republicans. Many lefty bloggers were also disappointed although they were effusive in their praise for Michelle Obama’s home run of a speech about her family. Again, if the goal were to capture an audience with drama and hold them, the Obama campaign succeeded. But as far as getting out a specific message and savaging the Republicans? Not so much.

They did a much better job last night but Holy Jesus someone give Mark Warner a shot of Vitamin B. Thankfully, his “Keynote” address lasted only about 15 minutes because I haven’t seen a keynoter that bad since Clinton’s 45 minute drone in 1988. I hesitate to bring up Zell Miller’s rousing killer of a speech from 2004 if only because you can’t compare apples and Sominex. Still, Warner gave an interesting speech even if it had no partisan red meat for the faithful to gnaw on. The question is was anyone in the TV audience listening after 5 minutes?

This brings us to Hillary’s roof buster. She has improved her public speaking skills enormously in the last 18 months. The transformation has been remarkable. I would say the last third of her speech was the best part of the convention so far for the Democrats and the best I’ve ever seen from her.

Josh Marshall also noticed the vast improvement:

That was quite a speech. It occurred to me as she built to the conclusion in the last few minutes, that the pre-2008 Hillary Clinton would not have been capable of that speech. That’s not a dig. But she grew incredibly as a candidate over the course of this campaign. And this was an immensely powerful delivery, and a richly woven together speech. The beginning seemed fine but not remarkable. But it slowly built into something very powerful.

But I somewhat agree with this analysis by Ron Fournier of AP that she never personalized her endorsement of Obama and that by making her support for the nominee an extension of her own campaign, she lessened its impact:

She took the high road Tuesday night because it was also her best road politically; if Obama wins, she still emerges as a central voice in American liberalism, replacing the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy. And if Obama loses, as Hillary said he would during the campaign, she is blameless and the party can turn back to her without guilt in four years.

Behind the scenes Tuesday, the Obama and Clinton camps struck a tentative deal that would allow some states to cast votes in a roll call before somebody — possibly Clinton herself — cuts short the tally and asks the convention to nominate Obama by unanimous consent. This was her price for ending her historic bid for the presidency in a manner that, however messy, still left Obama in a stronger position than Kennedy left Jimmy Carter in 1980, when the Massachusetts senator extracted platform concessions and shrank from the traditional unity show at the final gavel.

But she did extract her price.

The bill came due Tuesday. The crowd. The applause. The promise of a vote Wednesday, and a speech laced 17 times by some variation of the pronoun “I.”

She barely mentioned Obama for the first 2/3 of her speech (3 times by my count) and then poured it on during the last third. Did her call for unity fall on deaf ears? This piece in WaPo tried to gauge reaction by interviewing a dozen or so Hillary supporters – many of whom had variations of this response:

Most delegates agreed that Clinton’s impassioned speech marked a step toward reconciliation. The crowd in the Pepsi Center stood to applaud almost every time she mentioned Obama by name.

John Burkett, a Pennsylvania delegate and staunch Clinton supporter, attached an Obama button to his shirt. A New Mexico delegate said the “H” on his shirt will be replaced with an “O” come Thursday.

The last survey I saw had about 30% of Hillary supporters saying they would either stay home or vote McCain. I think most of those started on the road to the realization that Obama is really their only choice and will vote for him in November. In the end, given history and the partisan times we live in, I would expect that 30% to fall far below 10% by election day.

One other note on the speeches. I thought that Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer was outstanding. I can see how he won in such a heavily Republican state. Very personable and likable.

The LA Times’ Peter Wallsten added that party activists “got a glimpse Tuesday of a surprising new breakout star: a jovial, round-faced warrior with a bolo tie who managed to attack Republicans while keeping a smile on his face.”

Keep an eye on Schweitzer. We’re likely to hear more from him in the future.

I’ll agree with that except any politician from a small state – Republican or Democrat – is always at a disadvantage in a national race. Not impossible to overcome but they start out behind because of a bias in the MSM against them. I might add that candidates from the deep south have the same problem.

Overall grade for the convention so far? I give it a C+. Obviously some of that was beyond Obama’s control given his problems with Hillary Clinton and her supporters. And his campaign has done everything they can, going more than halfway to meet Clinton’s concerns. But the impression I’ve gotten is that many Hillary supporters don’t want to be convinced and their tepid support is dragging down the convention a little.

The Democrats have a case to make and they are not consistently making it – too many tangents, too many other stories about Hillary, Bill, and that whole drama are distracting from what should be their main message; the country can’t afford 4 more years of a Republican in the White House. I think the country is ready for that message, will be receptive to it – if they ever get around to consistently hammering it home.

The press is to blame for stirring the pot but a good campaign will do things that take the press by the scruff of the neck and force them to cover their themes, their issues. Both Democratic and Republican candidates have been able to do this before under worse circumstances. So far, the Obama campaign has perhaps not failed but could certainly be doing a better job.

It’s not too late to turn this thing into an A+ triumph for Obama. But tonight must be a real grand slam of an evening if the country is going to be properly prepped for Obama’s big night on Thursday.