DNC 2020: Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and key convention takeaways

Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Billie Eilish

A star-studded night at the Democratic convention saw big names from Barack Obama to Billie Eilish take the stage and Kamala Harris become the party's vice-presidential nominee.

On day three of four, speaker after speaker warned of how high the stakes are this time, and how victory is essential.

The make or break moment for this convention, of course, will come when Joe Biden himself speaks on Thursday night.

Everything done up to that point can help set the stage - or create additional obstacles - but in the end it's up to the candidate to deliver. With that in mind, here's how things are shaping up.

• The story of the night, reaction and analysis

Obama and Trump fight for their legacies

While Obama spent much of his speech talking about his former vice-president, he opened by launching the first salvo in what is sure to be an increasingly acrimonious war of words with the man who replaced him in the Oval Office.

The election will be seen as a choice between two legacies - Obama's and Trump's (file photo)

While the former president has offered oblique criticism in the past, in his convention speech he attacked the current president by name.

Trump, Obama said, hasn't taken the presidency seriously and he's shown no reverence for American democracy.

"Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't," he continued. "And the consequences of that failure are severe - 170,000 Americans dead; millions of jobs gone."

Asked about Obama's upcoming address during a press conference at the White House Wednesday evening, Trump offered a pre-buttle. He said Obama was ineffective as president, made "stupid transactions" and left the nation a "horror".

Things were so bad, he concluded, "that I stand before you as president".

• Obama and Trump rip into each other's record

As former president was concluding his remarks, Trump was on Twitter, pounding out all-caps accusations that Obama spied on him and that his endorsement of Biden was tepid and late in arriving.

Obama clearly struck a nerve.

For more than three years, Trump has treated the 2016 election - one he narrowly won - as a full-throated repudiation of his predecessor and governed accordingly. That has been a risky assumption, given that polls indicate Obama is currently one of the most popular political figures in the nation, while Trump has been net negative for most of his presidency.

Wednesday's clash suggests that the upcoming election between Trump and Joe Biden will be more than a choice between two men, it also will be one between two legacies - Obama's and Trump's. And both the current and former presidents are treating it accordingly.

Kamala Harris in the spotlight

Kamala Harris has had turns in the limelight before. She had viral moments when sharply questioning Supreme Court justices and Trump executive appointees. She made waves when she swiped at Joe Biden for opposing school desegregation bussing at the first Democratic debate.

This, however, was her biggest moment so far.

The now-official Democratic vice-presidential nominee had a bit of an extra challenge on Wednesday night, too, having to directly follow Obama, the party's most beloved and rhetorically gifted politician.

What Harris offered was a bit of an amalgam - one that sometimes connected and occasionally plodded. It was part biographical introduction, part sales pitch for Biden and - most notably - part frontal attack on structural racism.

"There is no vaccine for racism," she said in what will probably be her most quoted line. "We have got to do the work."

Although she's been attacked by some on the left for her prosecutorial background, Harris tried to turn that into a benefit for a general election audience, speaking of how she always tries to fight for justice.

"I know a predator when I see one," she said at one point, pausing long enough for her fellow Democrats to fill in the blanks.

Elizabeth Warren spoke from an empty classroom

Her speech delivered with smiles and warmth, but it took place in a rather haunting environment - a room constructed to replicate a party convention hall, complete with signposts for each state delegation, but devoid of the cheering crowds.

• Harris savages Trump 'failure of leadership'

It all had slightly post-apocalyptic feeling, which along with the vacant classrooms from which Senator Elizabeth Warren and Jill Biden spoke earlier, makes it seem that the emptiness of the current pandemic-stricken nation is a feeling Democrats want to highlight - and lay at Trump's feet.

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A slicker production

On its third night, some of the kinks from the first few evenings appear to be ironed out and the production levels are getting better. There were fewer missed cues, and the pacing was better.

A video of Joe Biden taking the phone and talking with a volunteer's grandmother, for instance, was a clever way to highlight the candidate's empathy - and, perhaps, draw a contrast with the current occupant of the White House.

A virtual convention like this was always going to have a sharp learning curve for organisers. Nothing quite like this has ever been done before, and many of the participants are much more comfortable talking to crowds then they are staring at a camera in an empty room.

If there was one theme that linked the speeches and the videos throughout the evening, it was the drumbeat urge for Democrats to turn out at the polls.

Hillary Clinton warned that she was proof that winning the popular vote by 3 million ballots is not enough. Harris, at the opening of the evening, made a surprise appearance to tout the party's new get-out-the-vote drive.

With concerns growing over polling-place safety, and questions about the speed and reliability of mail-in voting, Democrats wanted to make sure this week their faithful know exactly what to do.

Aiming for target audiences

One of the early critiques of this Democratic convention has been that organisers have not done enough to reach out to younger voters, who weren't too enthusiastic about Biden's candidacy in the party primaries.

On Wednesday, Democrats tried to expand their pitch a bit. They included videos from youthful gun-control, environmental and immigrant-rights activists, and featured a performance by Billie Eilish, the Grammy-winning 18-year-old singer-songwriter.

Billie Eilish performed the song "My Future" and said Donald Trump was "destroying our country"

Another spot of weakness has been the number of Hispanics with speaking slots so far. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who had a few minutes early on Wednesday evening, is the most prominent Hispanic politician to appear. Julian Castro was the only Hispanic to run for the president this year, but he apparently didn't make the cut.

Democrats will need the support of Hispanic voters if they want to win key electoral battleground states like Arizona and Florida in November and, perhaps, put a big, traditionally conservative prize like Texas in play.

One area where the convention has been more than representative, however, is in the number of women with high-profile addresses. Thursday will be the only day a man, Biden, is the evening's closing speaker. On Wednesday alone, Harris, Pelosi, Warren and Grisham all had their moments.

Polls suggest there is a sizeable gender gap in the support of the two parties, with women backing Democrats by significant margins. This week's programme for the Democrats certainly reflects that fact.

An opening for attack

The Democratic convention so far has been heavy on biography - Biden's on the positive, Trump's on the negative - and light on substance. What does Biden want to do as president, besides make Donald Trump an ex-president? The details aren't exactly clear.

Elizabeth Warren, who made "I have a plan for that" her campaign catchphrase, touted Biden's plans in her speech on Wednesday, but even the self-proclaimed policy nerd only described them in broad strokes.

Perhaps the former vice-president will spend some time sketching out more details in his acceptance speech on Thursday night. But if he doesn't, the Republicans will be more than happy to oblige when they get their turn in front of the nation at their convention next week.

Already they're saying that Biden is, in essence, a hollow vessel - one who will be filled and controlled by the more extreme segments of the party's progressive wing. Taxes will go up, guns will be confiscated, religious freedoms curtailed... the lines of attack have been telegraphed for months, if not years.

Perhaps being "not Trump" will be enough for a majority of Americans who might be tired of the relentless drama of the past three-and-a-half years. But if that is the Democratic campaign's strategy, it is one that comes with risks.