Howard Dean's Democratic Convention Speech Went from a C- to an 'A'.

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean gave a speech at the Democratic convention last night in Philadelphia. How did he do? I was watching his speech carefully and frankly was not very impressed. I was typing up my notes to provide analysis to you. I was about to give him a C minus. I thought he seemed almost a little disoriented at the beginning. It seemed like he wasn't reading the teleprompter. Almost like he couldn't see it or forgot to put contacts in. I'm also, and I realize this sounds superficial and almost beside the point in the era of Trump with his orange hair, but I just find Howard Dean's constantly having a different color hair on tv. Sometimes it's black, sometimes it's white. Last night it was. I don't know what color it was. I find that disorienting and distracting. So I'm about to give him the C minus I think he deserves, but then he ends his speech. And he ended it perfectly. He reenacted the very famous Dean scream that people erroneously think ended his campaign in 2004. His campaign had already faltered by then, but this was something he's been mocked for endlessly. He's famously refused to reenact it. He doesn't really like to talk about it. But by reenacting his Dean scream of seeing me over the top, of yelling, of being hyper excited, it brought the house down. Everyone laughed. It made everyone feel good about him. It showed he could make fun of himself. When you're a politician, the best way of using humor is when you are making fun of yourself, showing self awareness, getting people to laugh with you rather than at you. And because of that, it takes his grade from a C minus all the way up to an A. His speech is one people are talking about. It is getting pushed around viral video. People love the reenactment of the Dean's scream. And I think this has helped him. Certainly he has a high national profile. He's a regular on msnbc, a former party chair. But if Hillary Clinton wins, he's going to have a major place at the table, in part because of this speech. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me.