Michelle Obama is the headline speaker of the first night of the Democratic convention.

She will probably be better than the Tuesday night speech of John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz. I went back and checked, and think my initial reactions to Heinz’s address from 2004 were pretty spot-on:

The Democratic delegates apparently applaud punctuation, as every ferschtunkin’ sentence, no matter how mundane, is welcomed with enthusiastic cheers and clapping. Among the lines that have gotten applause:
“My name is Teresa Heinz Kerry.” “By now, I am sure it will come as no surprise that I have something to say.” (Lines in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese.) “My husband is John Kerry and I believe he should be President of the United States.”When every line is an applause line, no line is an applause line…My speech-reaction skills must be off. I thought Teresa’s speech was okay, but nothing special, rather bland, standard-issue stuff. Folks who were watching more closely said the audience was absolutely rapt with attention.
Chris Wallace agrees with me, saying that he didn’t understand before this evening why she was the marquee speaker for one of the convention’s nights. After hearing her speak this evening, he says he still doesn’t know. “I half expected her to break out into ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.’”
Mort Kondrake said she erred by saying America’s best face abroad was the Peace Corps, a big mistake when American soldiers are dying to fight terrorists and thugs abroad.

The challenge of a candidate’s wife or husband is that it’s hard for any paid staffer to tell the spouse when they’re making a mistake. Heinz’s speech was meandering, airy and never really made the case for her husband. It’s hard to imagine Michelle Obama making the same mistake — but it is easy to picture her hitting other off-key notes. If her speech has a line that could cause a distraction — “We can change America from the downright mean place it has been during my adult life,” etc. — will anyone be able to tell her, “that line has to be changed?”