On a July night in Boston in 2004, a 42-year-old state senator gave what we can understand now as probably the most important convention speech in our history, a thunderbolt that made the entire political world sit up and say, "Holy cow. That guy's going to be president one day." Twelve years later, his hair greyer and his face more wrinkled, he gave another convention speech on someone else's behalf. If he had been waiting much of his life to make that speech during John Kerry's convention, the speech he gave for Hillary Clinton was obviously one he'd been waiting to make for the duration of this campaign, if not longer. Watching the rapturous crowd and hearing his unmatched combination of eloquence and delivery, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that Barack Obama will cast an awfully long shadow over Hillary Clinton, should she be fortunate enough to win in November.

Obama's speech was not just a rebuke to Donald Trump's apocalyptic vision of our country, though it certainly was that. Even more, it was a powerful articulation of the progressive version of the American story, and an assertion of patriotism every ounce as strong as that of those who have for eight years questioned whether he is truly American.