Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo

The last time Michelle Obama delivered a speech on stage at a Democratic National Convention, she wore a teal sheath by Chicago-based designer Maria Pinto, which was accessorized with a starburst brooch at the center of the neckline.

Charles Rex Arbogast / AP Photo

It’s no surprise that Stephanie Cutter didn’t think much of the Republican convention and its blatant appeal to female voters. But there was one woman she singled out for praise.“Ann Romney is an impressive person and did a good job of giving a lens into her husband,” she tells me.

Tom Pennington / Getty Images

Tuesday night, arguably the most popular campaigner of this presidential race will have her say, when Michelle Obama takes the stage to make the case for her husband’s reelection.And while her role as candidate’s wife remains more or less the typical one—humanize the hubby—expect the contrast between Mobama’s convention appearance and Ann Romney’s to be dramatic in a number of ways.

Charles Dharapak / AP Photo

The schedule for the Democratic National Convention is laid out a little differently than the RNC's, at least on the first day. Where the Republicans offered a series of speeches one after another, on Tuesday the Democrats will mix major speeches with panel discussions.

AP Photo (2)

While the Democratic convention this week celebrates the party’s new coalition, Bill Clinton will no doubt try to recapture the white middle class that’s largely deserted the Democrats since his presidency ended. But it’s likely his efforts will be a case of too little, too late for Barack Obama—who will have to look elsewhere for his electoral majority.

Patrick Semansky / AP Photo

Martin O’Malley, who is busy singing President Obama’s praises in Charlotte, is also keeping one eye on the next Democratic convention—the one that gets under way in 2016.When the Maryland governor submitted his speech—“They only gave me seven minutes”—to Obama campaign officials, he recalls, “they said I had too many applause lines.

Pat Sullivan / AP Photo

Henry Cisneros. Antonio Villaraigosa. Bill Richardson.It’s a safe bet that Julian Castro, the San Antonio mayor and rising Latino star set to deliver the keynote address Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention, remembers these names well.

Jae C. Hong

Not a lot of news—in the sense of unscripted surprises or revelations of things previously unknown—is generated at national political conventions, let alone on the day before national political conventions.So more than a hundred photographers and reporters—some of them speaking French and German—gathered in a mob Monday afternoon on the floor of Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena to watch Michelle Obama conduct television interviews high above in the nosebleed suites and then descend to the blue-carpeted podium to check out the speechifying equipment.

Well here I am in my hotel, a Quality Inn in the exurbs about 20 miles outside of Charlotte, across the highway from a down-at-heel seeming amusement park, surrounded by mega-gas-stations on one side, an office park on the other.

Mladen Antonov, AFP / Getty Images

Never mind hope and change—or at least the euphoric hope and sweeping change that characterized Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. The message this week in Charlotte, N.C., site of the Democratic National Convention that will nominate President Obama for a second term, is incremental change and a tiny sliver of hope.

Mandel Ngan, AFP / Getty Images

This week in Charlotte, N.C., Barack Obama will answer Mitt Romney. It’s a doable task, given that Obama is one of the most gifted orators in modern American history, and Romney, as he reminded us Thursday, is not. But to succeed, Obama’s speech must include two phrases that he doesn’t usually utter on the stump.

Charlie Riedel / AP Photo

The relentless drumbeat during the Republican convention was loud and insistent: Mitt Romney had to deliver the political speech of his life.By contrast, the conventional wisdom surrounding Barack Obama is that he can deliver the speech of his life here in Charlotte and it won’t matter.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

When Bill Clinton takes center stage at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this week, he will make a characteristically forceful case for the party’s other big dog, Barack Obama, arguing that a second Obama term is a vital necessity, and sounding for all the world as if the current president has no greater admirer than the man from Hope.

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They’re caught in a trap. And it’s a trap they built. (Yes, they did build it. Nobody else made it happen.) As the 2012 Democratic National Convention nears, I do not envy Team Obama. They have to escape from the narrative trap they’ve built.

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Weather-related concerns about Tampa, the site of the Republicans’ 2012 national convention, first began circulating back in 2010. Now, as Tropical Storm Isaac marches toward Florida and looks likely to become a hurricane—forcing the cancellation of the first day of RNC events—the choice is looking even less wise.