Ideally, a party whose top two presidential-primary finishers are approaching 80 would have more potential White House talent on its bench.

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T
he first night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) went just fine for Joe Biden. It featured a diverse array of voices, all of whom — from the far-left Vermont senator Bernie Sanders to the smarmy former Republican Ohio governor John Kasich — praised Biden and condemned Donald Trump as utterly unfit to meet the challenges of the coming four years. Biden leads the RealClearPolitics polling average by almost eight points right now, so “just fine” will do. Short of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulling a Ted Cruz circa 2016 and urging her acolytes to vote their conscience — which she won’t do — it’s difficult to imagine Biden coming out of his convention with anything but a bounce, if a slight one.

But for party leaders and those looking beyond 2020, last night should be cause for concern. Every speaker save for Michelle Obama could best be described as a human flatline. Muriel Bowser, mayor of the nation’s capital, gave an awkward speech making the case for Biden as a champion of racial justice and boasting of her establishment of Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C., where the murder rate has spiked by 17 percent as compared with last year.

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Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator considered by many to be the favorite for the VP slot on the Biden ticket until she took herself out of the running, gave characteristically uninspiring remarks and made her typical “joke” — she always laughs at least — asking of Donald Trump’s behavior “Who does that?” Gretchen Whitmer, another veepstakes loser, who alternates between her best impersonations of Sarah Palin and Dolores Umbridge, began her speech self-importantly, calling herself “that woman from Michigan,” a reference to a relatively unmemorable dig that the president took at her earlier this year.

Sanders, who has finished as the runner-up in back-to-back Democratic primaries, paid lip service to the “radical” ideas he championed in both of his campaigns for the Oval Office, but spent most of his speech praising the man who beat him and speaking of Donald Trump’s ills. It was sad, really, to see the socialist so resigned to his defeat and so effusive in his advocacy for Biden. Worse for Sanders is that the future of his movement is unclear. The aforementioned Ocasio-Cortez seems destined to become the new standard-bearer for Sanders’s agenda, and while she’s attained a level of fame that a 30-year-old Sanders could only have dreamed of, she is far from an ideal successor. Although she has undoubtedly proved her social-media savvy and talent for oration, Ocasio-Cortez lacks the simple, authentic charm of Sanders. Sanders has an affable abrasiveness, while Ocasio-Cortez’s lectures are grating and contrived. And voters have noticed: In a July 2019 poll, 74 percent of voters indicated that they knew who Ocasio-Cortez was but only 22 percent expressed a favorable opinion.

Former first lady Michelle Obama was by far the most compelling speaker of the night. Self-assured and sympathetic, she outclassed the cast of politicians who spoke before her, and avoided the terrible awkwardness that seemed to pervade the rest of the evening. The bad news for Democrats is that it’s extremely unlikely she will seek public office; despite her prowess, her distaste for electoral politics has been well established.

It’s unlikely that the Democrats’ next nominee spoke on Monday. But the pickings are slim even outside of yesterday’s narrow slate of speakers. Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential campaign flamed out early, and she reminds voters too much of Hillary Clinton. It feels like decades ago that Beto O’Rourke insisted on the cover of Vanity Fair that he was “born to be” a candidate for president. But it wasn’t that long ago that his campaign ended unceremoniously, and with it his stardom. Joe Kennedy III — whom Democrats selected to issue the response to Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address — is running for Senate in Massachusetts against progressive incumbent Ed Markey on a platform of “it’s my birthright.” It looks like he will lose.

VP nominee Kamala Harris and former mayor Pete Buttigieg appear to be the only plausible future Democratic nominees as of right now, and they each come with their own problems. Harris’s campaign was plagued by indecisiveness and infighting, and she floundered on the debate stage after her strong showing in the first one. Buttigieg may be the frontrunner. He’s the best viable communicator left in the party, a progressive who can cloak his progressivism when appealing to moderate Democrats and independents. He does, however, have a well-documented issue with appealing to black voters, and you simply cannot win a Democratic primary while garnering almost no support from African Americans.

Even worse for the Democrats is that it is unlikely their bench will be replenished anytime soon. If Joe Biden wins in 2020, that will probably be the high-water mark for Democrats, as Republicans will almost assuredly make gains in the 2022 midterms. Contrast their plight with the GOP, whose 2024 primary may be even more crowded than in 2016. Presidential-campaign veterans Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul will likely be greeted by a slew of new candidates, including Rick Scott, Tim Scott, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and more.

Democrats whose sole focus is on defeating Trump — that is to say, all Democrats — should be pleased with how night one of the DNC turned out. Ideally, though, a party whose top two presidential-primary finishers are approaching 80 would have more potential White House talent on its bench.