CHARLOTTE  – I’m not alone in seeing President Obama’s renomination speech tonight as a bit pedestrian. It sounded like a regular stump speech.

But in the Time Warner Center, the crowd treated the speech as a rip-roaring sermon. Any little applause line ignited a standing ovation. Any rhetorical repetition worked the crowd into a growing frenzy. Sometimes the crowd applauded at inappropriate moments. Other times they threw him off his timing because ordinary lines unexpectedly became applause lines.