Barack Obama's Reagan moment

DENVER MORNING IN America. Destiny in Denver.

The high point for Democrats was Reaganesque, as Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination to run for president.

An inspirational video. American flags. Fireworks. Red, white, and blue glitter cascading through Denver's thin air. Obama, Joe Biden, and their families, audaciously framed against a set designed to look like the White House.

Obama spoke about the promise of the future and wrapped up with the history that makes his quest so poignant. Referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the famous "I Have a Dream" speech delivered 45 years ago, Obama noted that King's listeners did not hear anger; instead, they heard "the preacher " say that "in America, our destiny is inextricably linked."

It was a powerful message. Ronald Reagan would approve.

There were other convention snapshots Reagan would appreciate.

On Monday night, Michelle Obama and her two beautiful daughters gazed at Obama's visage on a huge television screen. At the Dallas convention in 1984, Nancy Reagan waved from the podium to her husband, the president, after his face popped up on a large TV screen behind her.

Add to that Hillary Clinton's moment of grace, Bill Clinton's speech, and Beau Biden introducing "my dad."

Not every minute in Denver worked that well, but enough did for Democrats to consider the week a success.

The convention did not really gel for its nominee until Wednesday night, when Bill Clinton talked about the economy and foreign policy, and finally turned the page from the party's discord to its nominee.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the last Democrat to lose a presidential campaign, and Biden, Obama's running mate, began to argue the case against another Republican administration: more of the same from their good friend John McCain. The Arizona senator doesn't need any more friends like these guys.

Obama followed up the next night. First, he answered those skeptics who questioned whether he could turn a football stadium packed with more than 84,000 people into an intimate gathering. Yes, he could. Then he picked up the case against McCain, challenging his judgment and essentially equating a McCain presidency with the last eight years of Bush-Cheney.

The lines of Republican counter-attack are already out there: Obama's background, experience and past associates, including one preacher who did speak out in anger, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama made many promises in his speech, including pledges to launch new programs to solve complex problems, as well as cut taxes for the middle class. Republicans will do their own math. They will conclude the Obama platform doesn't add up and write it off as more of the same expensive, foolish, and failed liberal idealism. Their problem will be voters who want to believe in it, because it feels so good, especially in tough economic times.

But, how does McCain reclaim the all-important feel-good mantle the Obama campaign stole from Reagan?

His own life story contains inspirational and heroic elements. But, Democrats have already begun to undercut his military service and years as a POW. They thank him for his service, then say the country needs more than "a good soldier." Worse, they suggest that the good soldier lacks the temperment to be commander-in-chief.

McCain chose to undercut his maverick image by embracing Bush administration policies he rejected as a senator. He will have to try to resurrect what's left of the candidate who once challenged George W. Bush on the presidential campaign trail.

He can try to unwrap the gauzy story spun by Obama at Invesco Field. But if all McCain does is attack, he becomes the the candidate of gloom and doom, a fateful designation Republicans pin on losing opponents.

In Denver, the Democrats wrapped themselves in flags and admirals, and Obama delivered the poetry that got him to this improbable point.

"We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy," he said.

But Obama also flaunted an impressive understanding of the party of Reagan.

The picture counts. The staging matters. Pretty words seduce.

Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.