Well, shut my mouth.

He did all right. He actually did all right.

And I owe an apology to Shrum (or I would, if he were reading); that speech wasn't half bad.

It was a shame, as Joe Scarborough noted last night, that he had to rush through it so much. But he had to get in under the 11 PM wire -- though Tom Brokaw declared on MSNBC last night that the affiliates would not have cut away from Kerry if he'd gone long.

Also, the domestic policy section sort of dragged.

Another minor point: he sure did sweat. I don't blame him for that, and I don't think it was too big of a deal. The future Mrs. Capt. Willard didn't think so, anyway.

I did think there was one sour note, and it came late in the speech:

"I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush. In the weeks ahead let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity. Let's respect one another. And let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States."

OK, first of all, this is, as Stephanopoulos said last night, a disingenuous request. Kerry had in this very speech blasted Bush in a way that would seem designed to inspire "angry division," at least at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

"As president, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House."

This statement had me and the future Mrs. Capt. Willard positively agape. There was other stuff in the speech that confronted Bush head-on, but nothing as brutally effective as this. It's not only red meat for the convention floor, but also a sign for the rest of the country that this guy has the brass balls necessary to take on al Qaeda.

The "let's be optimists" challenge is a hollow one. He should -- and sometimes did -- let his words and actions express optimism in more subtle ways, as Barack Obama did the other night. All this "I'm an optimist" talk, if it's pushed too far, starts to sound like denial.

And I know I'm dim, but what does the Constitution have to do with it?

Edited to add: Duh. Andrew Sullivan lets me know that this is about the gay-marriage amendment. How soon I forget.

Sullivan, by the way, really liked that part, while feeling the stuff about how Kerry would handle terrorism and the war in Iraq was a little too fuzzy.

I totally agree with that. Saying you'll "build alliances" or whatever is not a plan. Whether it's enough to win the election -- which is really Job One at this point -- remains to be seen.

Anyway, it was an effective speech. I had extremely low expectations for Kerry -- see last night's post for proof -- but he exceeded them by a wide, wide margin. I'm not as excited about the speech this morning as I was last night, but it seems he did everything he had to do in this convention, including reassuring the public he can handle the job of president and addressing the major criticisms against him.

Perhaps more importantly, though, he did something else, too: he made himself seem human. I'd seen glimpses of his personality in more intimate settings, such as the 60 Minutes interview with him and Edwards, in which he seemed positively charming. But often in this campaign, particularly on the stump, he'd seemed wooden in the extreme -- more wooden than Al Gore, that paragon of woodenness -- with a grating, immodulated voice and a stubborn inability to get to the point.

Last night, though, he positively -- literally -- glowed. Some of that was sweat, of course, but the sweat was almost endearing. The salute and the "reporting for duty," along with the air-hug of Teresa, were goofy as all get-out, but Americans feel comfortable with goofy. Please see Bush, George W. He had a ready smile, which is actually fairly pleasant, that he flashed fairly often.

Some of the talking heads last night said a candidate's personality isn't as important in this election as it has been in previous elections, that voters don't feel the candidates have to pass some sort of charisma test, such as "Would I have a PBR with this guy?" because the stakes are so much higher now.

They may be right, but I'm not sure. For all the war and terror talk thrown around in Washington and at this convention, I don't think Americans are feeling quite so alarmed that they've turned into a bunch of sober Brookings scholars. You don't have to look far to see evidence that we're still a pretty shallow, easily distracted bunch, for whom image is still very important.

Kerry's not going to make anybody's sexiest-people list or anything, but I think people would probably rather have dinner with him than, say, Al Gore, the guy who won the popular vote in 2000.

Karl Rove would seem to have his work cut out for him.