Michelle Obama

South Ward Councilman Oscar James II (center) confers with Booker staffers Terrance Bankston and Bari Mattes.: Politicker photo 

DENVER - A core member of the Booker Team, South Ward Councilman Oscar James II exulted in the speech delivered last night by Michelle Obama, even as he noted the persistent gloom of some Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) supporters in the New Jersey delegation.

"It makes me a little nervous because we have to be united," said James.

Widely hailed as a homerun by the New Jersey delegation, the speech by the wife of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee did not go too heavy on family values to the detriment of hard, urban issues, in James’s view.

State Sen. M. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos, and Obama Campaign senior advisor Mark Alexander: Politicker photo 

DENVER - There persists a quiet agony among Hillary Clinton supporters who sit at the DNC events but pick at their food and squirm with a perpetual sense of loss, as thoughts of a Clinton coronation still dance vainly in their heads.

Don’t count Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) among that crowd, insists the 30-something Latina, who represents the City of Newark.

Schooled as a precinct captain in the North Ward before launching her own career as an elected official in 2007, Ruiz supported Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in the Democratic Primary.

But Ruiz is very clear about her long-term pride in the candidacy of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

Check back tomorrow morning to view my sketchpad for day two of the Democratic National Convention, and go to my national blog to follow convention coverage by cartoonists from around the country.

New Jersey delegates cheer Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver Monday night: Scott Weingart Photo
DENVER - A good orator indulges in autobiography to the extent that he or she can connect to a common story, with the danger never far that the wrong points of emphasis can entrap the speaker in self congratulations.

Michelle Obama’s maternal confessional and intimate revelatory family detail treaded too close to the edges of egotism for only a handful of the New Jersey delegation, with most Democrats hailing the effort as a dead-on bull’s-eye.

They spilled into the spacious Celtic Tavern on Blake Street after the convention on Monday night, and the liquor flowed as U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-Cliffside Park) celebrated the presidential candidate’s wife as a people’s champion.

"Her speech reached out and spoke to the common story," said Lautenberg. "It reminded me very much of my own story, growing up in Paterson, working hard, having a father who died young. She told a story that many of us can relate to."

The Democratic National Convention will be called to order at 5:00 PM EST today, with a theme of "One Nation."  Featured speakers include Michelle Obama, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), former President Jimmy Carter, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who will introduce a tribute to her uncle, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).

Michelle Obama speaks to voters in New Hampshire
MANCHESTER, NH - Compared to Jersey, it’s edge of the world country.

Snow-capped Monadnock in the distance between Manchester and Keene sends a wordless message that the human hurly burly is but a small piece of the action. A headline in the Union-Leader tells of a hunter who’s still lost after several days and the sense is this is commonplace in New Hampshire. Human star power that blows through on the way to the presidency has nothing on the constancy of the hills, and the mountain.

Today the student center crawls with Secret Service personnel at Keene College, where kids bundled into backpacks and ballcaps trudge from edifice to noble edifice in the dreadful cold.

The students prepare to hear from Michelle Obama, the 43-year old wife of the presidential candidate, who’s leading in Iowa over Sen. Hillary Clinton by a four-point margin, and trailing her by six points in New Hampshire, according to Washington Post/ABC News polls. When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1991, he wore out his voice calling for change. Now he’s the institutional old sage and his wife is the political insider, while Obama the upstart calls for change, and his wife amplifies the message.