In my column for InsiderNJ two days ago, I wrote that Monday’s opening session of the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention marked the biggest revolution in political communication since 1960, when Jack Kennedy and Richard Nixon participated in America’s first-ever televised Presidential debates.   I also said the flaws in the production were as glaring as the evening’s innovations, and that future generations would be stunned at how rudimentary the 2020 DNC was compared to all the subsequent video-based conventions it inspired.

Today I stand corrected.  You won’t have to wait generations to see the strides.   Last night’s third session of the 2020 DNC was the most successful night among all televised national conventions of either major party in American history.   Whereas Monday night was the rusty first game at spring training and Tuesday night was a solid opening day, last night the Democratic Party was as perfect as Don Larson in his perfect game 5 for the New York Yankees in the 1956 World Series.  Parenthetically, I, the guy who founded the statewide gay rights group Garden State Equality, did not have to Google the analogy.

Last night, the DNC hit every soaring note that it missed on the two previous nights.  The party followed all the pointers last night that I, a television producer before I became a Democratic political operative, suggested in my Tuesday review of night one.   Instead of the MTV quick cuts and overcramming of speakers from Monday night that were excruciatingly 1980s – reminiscent of some young producer who acted as if television were a toy – last night’s session presented stories America will never forget.

Each story was a mini-documentary from which no viewer with a conscience could remove her eyes or her heart, courtesy of timelessly elegant writing as if Edward R. Murrow has written the copy for “See It Now.”  Murrow’s program, like Don Larson’s perfect game, is from the 1950s.   But good television is always good television, and riveting taped packages, as we call them in television, can touch the soul beyond what any rousing speech before a packed arena can do.   In that regard, indulge me in this television insider’s tip.  I guarantee you last night’s segments had more seasoned producers than those to whom the DNC assigned to night one.

Last night, the Democratic Party remembered what storytelling can do.  Though the evening was the most substantive of the three nights, party luminaries and everyday Americans fleshed out the party’s platform through gimmick-free poignancy.   Rather than preach to us about Donald Trump’s gross negligence on gun violence or his pathological hatred of Latinx immigrants, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords took our breath way through the triumph of her resilience over her still visible fragility.   Silvia Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant who lives in North Carolina, sat in our living rooms with her family that has experienced seemingly every health and financial tragedy under the sun.

Donald Trump and the Republicans cannot present any stories next week to refute the stories we heard last night.  As I tell students when I teach political communication, facts can be refuted with other facts.   First-hand stories of heartbreak cannot be refuted at all.  Last night was preemptive genius.

Matching the perfection of last night’s television production was its political benefit to the Biden-Harris ticket and entire Democratic Party.  In my review of Monday night, I had suggested the party missed the opportunity to build the program around Michelle Obama’s magnificent speech.  With Mrs. Obama’s being the most popular American alive, we should have seen a segment about her before her speech, and reactions from around the country to it afterward.  Tuesday night, the party did an infinitely better job through videos that told the story of Dr. Jill Biden and her early romance with Joe, a widower with children.  The narrative arc of the evening made everyone who didn’t know Jill Biden fall in love with her madly.

That’s what the Democrats did last night for Kamala Harris.   The entire evening had a narrative arc of strong women, particularly women of color, who poured their hearts out to set the stage for Senator Harris’ triumphant speech accepting the Vice Presidential nomination.   For two riveting hours, we watched the trajectory of history before our eyes.  It was produced better than any night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention that nominated a woman for the Presidency itself.   My party has learned.

By being so generous with its focus on Senator Harris last night, the Biden-Harris campaign solidified its ticket as the most evenly balanced since Clinton-Gore in 1992.  That was the last ticket where a running mate made an electoral difference – back then, doubling down to solidify the South.  Last night guaranteed Senator Harris will not fade into the woodwork as Tim Kaine did in 2016.  Last night especially strengthened Senator Harris’ appeal to African-American women whom she was unable to reach in the primaries.

We got the message:  Joe and Kamala are partners.  We are voting for a team.  It was a brilliant strategy for any voter who has age or other doubts about the Presidential nominee alone.

By the same token, last night worked to erase lingering doubts about Joe progressive Democrats.  When Joe won Super Tuesday and it became apparent he would be the likely nominee, a new profile-photo frame appeared on Facebook:  “Joe Biden, I guess.”  He had emerged as the generic Democratic nominee who required progressives to engage in self-hypnosis to accept.

But up close, I have seen a different Joe Biden – the progressive he has always been.  In the early 1990s, I was a Democratic staff lawyer for U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee responsible for the Brady Law and the Violence Against Women Act, both of which began with Joe Biden in the Senate.  I spent hours in his office watching him treat every janitor, policy staffer and administrative support person with equal kindness, borne out of his respect for the worth of every member of humankind.

Like his good friend, my former boss Senator Frank Lautenberg of blessed memory, Senator Biden internalized and communicated every story of every disadvantaged person he ever met, and strived to turn each story into policy.  Being a progressive begins with empathy.   That’s what we saw last night when we heard from abused women saved by the Violence Against Women Act written by Joe Biden as if his own family depended on it.

Lest any progressive be skeptical about the Joe Biden they were being fed last night, Elizabeth Warren gave the most strategic speech of the night, however short it was.  She graciously transferred the hallmarks of her brand to Joe – her “I’ve got a plan” and “big, structural change” – with her signature relentless intensity that would make a liar out of anyone who doubted her sincerity.  In political parlance, Senator Warren was the best third-party validator for whom a Presidential nominee could hope outside his or her own family.

History, no doubt, will record Barack Obama’s speech last night as the best-crafted, best-delivered speech at a political convention other than those by nominees themselves – and perhaps including those by nominees.  Barack Obama could have fallen into the trap Chris Christie entered when Christie delivered the keynote address for Mitt Romney at the 2012 Republican convention.  Christie made the speech about himself, no surprise, rather than about the nominee.   Who could have blamed Barack Obama if he had done the same last night?   Donald Trump paved his road to the Presidency through character assassinations of President Obama tethered in racism, lies and low-life conspiracies.

But President Obama didn’t take the bait last night.  Rather than engage in a full-throttled defense of his record, he weaved together a magnificent defense of the constitution with his brotherly love for Joe Biden in, appropriately enough, the City of Brotherly Love.  Like Senator Warren, President Obama transferred his popularity to the nominee with joy.  That’s because the love Joe Biden engenders is real.   People want to help him as he has helped others.

That is the essence of Joe Biden’s likeability and what the DNC presented brilliantly last night.  No matter what Donald Trump does next week, he could not play on the likeability field if he tried.  Game, set and match, Joe Biden, thanks to the revolutionary 2020 DNC.

Editor’s Note:   Before working in Democratic politics and founding Garden State Equality, Steven Goldstein was a television producer who won 17 television news awards, including 10 Emmys.

www.StevenGoldstein.com