‘I Am the Only Person Stupid Enough to Speak After Michelle Obama’

Whoever set the schedule for the second night of the Democratic National Convention certainly did Barack Obama no favors. As the former president admitted when he took the stage on Tuesday night, “I am the only person stupid enough to speak after Michelle Obama.”

Not to say that the Democrats gathered in the United Center in Chicago were unappreciative of their onetime favorite son. Mr. Obama delivered the kind of rousing yes-we-can speech that 20 years ago vaulted him from obscurity toward the White House. But following Mrs. Obama? He has demonstrated better judgment.

The his-and-hers marquee convention speeches by the 45th president of the United States and the former first lady fired up the partisan crowd. Speaking back- to-back over the course of an hour, the Obamas reminded Democrats of a past era of hope and change while electrifying a convention after a ceremonial roll call nominated Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for vice president.

But while the delegates loved Mr. Obama, they really loved Mrs. Obama. From the minute she entered to Stevie Wonder to the end when she introduced her husband, she had the hall wrapped in her hand. No wonder Mr. Obama did not want to go next. No wonder former President Donald J. Trump over the years has repeatedly expressed a feverish worry that the Democrats would turn to Mrs. Obama as their next nominee in some kind of bizarre conspiratorial plot.

From the stage at the United Center on Tuesday, Mrs. Obama eviscerated Mr. Trump as a product of “the affirmative action of generational wealth” who nonetheless enjoyed the “grace of failing forward” while moaning that he was somehow a victim. She described him as a racist and misogynist who exploited