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Democratic and Republican national conventions are mainly about politics as performance art these days. And usually there are just two categories of performers: the Wheels and the Spinners.

Wheels (both actual and self-perceived) usually work hard to convince us that they are doing important things, when they usually are not. Spinners work hard to convince journalists and voters that the wheels they work for did grander things than the other wheels.

But every now and then something truly significant happens. And opening night at the Democratic National Convention was just such an occasion. It featured one of the grandest of the Democratic political performers: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

And it produced the most positive and accurate assessment of the liberal icon’s feat by a most unusual source — not any of the Democratic spinners in Denver but a conservative Republican: former Reagan White House political strategist Edward Rollins.

We begin with Ted Kennedy. He was supposed only to sit silently on the sidelines as a film of homage celebrated his career. His aides said so. But silence has never been his strength. And it would not be now, even as he is battling brain cancer. So, out he came, walking slowly but surprisingly surely, introduced by his niece Caroline.

The liberal lion of four decades of Democratic national conventions was staking out his territory, one more (and perhaps one last) time, in this blue-lit Denver convention hall named after Pepsi-Cola.

His trademark shock of white hair, seemingly still there when seen from the front, had been markedly thinned on the left side and rear by medical treatment. But his trademark oratorical roar was astoundingly still there. And the moment we heard it, we all remembered the mane, and those conventions past, when his hair had been full and dark, his oratory powerful, his liberal cause hopeful.

Now, on Monday night, he pushed aside a stool that had been placed at the rostrum for him in case he felt frail. He had not ignored doctors’ concerns and come to the convention just to sit and soak in accolades. He had come to lead, once again, his party’s unrequited cause.

“My fellow Democrats, my fellow Americans, it is so wonderful to be here,” Kennedy began. “And nothing — nothing — is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight.”

Kennedy had come to lead the transition of his party — from old leadership to new. And to assure that his party would remain true to its cause and its core. He addressed his own condition and personal cause without ever mentioning it.

“For me this is a season of hope. ... And this is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.”

Kennedy performed with an eloquence that was exceeded only by his courage. But it is important to note that not all of Kennedy’s past convention performances were as laudatory. In 1980, Kennedy finally conceded what had been obvious for months — that he’d failed in his challenge to wrest the presidential nomination from President Jimmy Carter. Then Kennedy succeeded in eluding Carter, who vainly chased him around the stage, hoping to corner him for one of those hands-clasped-high photo ops.

Kennedy’s 1980 speech had ended with a classic refrain that built until it boomed — and he virtually repeated Monday night, with one modification. “And this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans,” Kennedy said, his voice ringing as powerfully as it had 28 years earlier. “So with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.” In 1980, Kennedy’s last line had been: “... and the dream shall never die.”

Soon the night was being dissected by Democratic spinners. After all of the usual micro-punditry, CNN turned to Rollins, whose boss, Ronald Reagan, had won that 1980 election in a landslide. Asked about Kennedy’s Monday night speech, Rollins looked beyond the mini-squabbles and nuances as only a true outsider can — and nailed the true significance of the liberal lion’s night. Said Rollins: “He put the soul back in this party.”

— Scripps Howard News Service