Even before the Democratic National Convention last Sunday in Denver, the Mile High City in Colorado, they rattled their sharp political swords and attacked each other’s character instead of discussing their stands on the burning national issues facing America today.

The McCain camp started the first blow against Obama, who found himself on the receiving end of an all-out character attack, branding him un-American and unpatriotic. Not a moment too soon, however, the Obama camp hurled its own character attack, pointing out McCain’s inability to remember how many houses he owns with his wife.

This is the very same "old politics" that Obama himself had vowed to get rid of in his campaign signature theme of "hope and change." Alas, he has become its first casualty. As a result, his once formidable lead over McCain, in national and electoral college projections based on state-level polls, has virtually vanished. According to the latest Gallup survey, McCain now leads Obama 48 to 46.

The nauseating exchanges of personal attacks happened days before the DNC opening last Sunday. And there one Democrat speaker after another fired their own verbal shots not only against McCain, but also George W. Bush, who’s currently holding what is arguably the most important job in the world, hollering and waving placards like "McCain the Sidekick of Bush," "McCain the Same," and a dozen other anti-McCain banners.

Interestingly, it took two women – New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who withdrew last June from her campaign in favor of Illinois Senator Obama as Democratic presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, and Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama, the first African-American would-be President of the United States, to bring the campaign to a higher level than the "dirty politics" played by Republican and Democratic politicians., yes, what we in the Philippines call in derision "tradpols"!

Michelle delivered an emotionally-charged speech at the DNC opening. She told cheering Democrats about how she and her husband struggled to get an education, how loving her husband was to her two daughters, and, albeit briefly, voiced her love for America, her answer to critics who had questioned their patriotism.

Oh yes, Michelle, a lawyer who graduated like her husband from Harvard, talked about the dream of all Americans, young and old, for a better life and future, something that Bush and Republicans have failed to do for them in the past eight years.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who deferred her own dreams on Tuesday night, second day of the DNC, delivered a stirring speech with a plea to all Democrats to unite behind Barack Obama, in soaring and utterly clear language, and, as I saw and heard on CNN News, showed none of the anger and disappointment that she felt after she failed to win the Democratic nomination last June.

"I am a proud supporter of Barack Obama," Hillary declared, her voice rising above the thunderous roar in the DNC arena "Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president!" And one can see the sea of fists in the air and hear drones of "Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!"

She also painted a dismal accurate picture of what another four years of a Republican administration under John McCain. And then she intoned, "No way, no how, no McCain!" And then she told her listeners in the arena, and the millions who watched and heard her on radio and television, of the Democratic Party’s agenda of "no more economic stagnation, no more high gas prices, no more skyrocketing debts, no more wars," but "more of government where the privileged few come first, and everyone else comes first," under a new Democratic administration.

Hillary voiced her support for Obama, in the first paragraph, the very last, and many, many more times in between her 23-minute speech, with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea, who had earlier introduced her mother as "my hero," beaming from the balcony as she delivered her great speech.

Obama, who watched the convention proceedings from Montana, praised Hillary’s speech. "That was excellent, that was a strong speech… She made the case for why we’re going to be unified in November and why we’re going to win this election. I thought she was outstanding."

Even pundits in the media establishment were amazed by Hillary’s speech. As one put it, Hillary may not be a great orator, but sometimes a great speech does not require great speaking. All it requires are the right words, delivered by the right person in the right setting. And that, indeed, was what Obama and all the mesmerized Democrats got from Hillary Clinton.

Well, after such a magnificent performance, I like to think, Hillary Clinton’s political future is assured, she could run again in 2012, and fulfill the dream of all American women to finally see the first woman President of the United States of America.

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All that happened on the second day of the Democratic Party’s National Convention in Denver. The following day, Wednesday, it was former President Bill Clinton’s turn to speak and he startled the Democrats when he offered his unstinting endorsement of Barack Obama’s credentials for the US presidency.

"I say to you all," Clinton, who served two terms as US president, "Barack Obama is ready to lead America and restore American leadership in the world!"

Soon after this, Hillary Clinton cut short the roll call and moved for the nomination by acclamation of Obama as the first African-American presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.