CHARLOTTE — Democrats have adopted the one-word slogan “Forward” to describe President Obama’s re-election campaign and the party’s philosophy in general. All the speakers on the convention’s first night made some sort of reference to it. But for a party that is so intently focused on the future, the biggest, loudest, and most emotional moment of the night came not when the delegates welcomed one promising face of the future (keynote speaker Julian Castro), nor the face of the present (First Lady Michelle Obama), but instead when the crowd watched a video tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who would have run for president 40 years ago, in 1972, had he not suffered the political effects of fleeing and failing to report a fatal auto accident, and did run for the White House 32 years ago, in 1980, when he unsuccessfully challenged a sitting Democratic president.

The Kennedy tribute had an impact not only because the late Massachusetts lawmaker and his family remain Democratic gods.  It was also perfectly pitched for the current campaign because the video producers threw in a few clips from 1994, when Kennedy ran against one Mitt Romney and hit his Republican challenger with one putdown after another in their debate.  With each Kennedy zinger, the crowd roared. Some observers thought the inclusion of the Romney segment injected an overly partisan note in a nostalgic tribute, but it’s hard to imagine that the old partisan warrior Kennedy would have objected to his memorial video doubling as an attack ad.