Of all the 23 gazillion words written, uttered, blogged, Twittered, texted, broadcast, cablecast, uploaded or downloaded during the first day of the Democratic National Convention, here are some of the more prescient:

• Humorist Dave Barry, writing for The National Journal Online: “Sen. [Hillary] Clinton is scheduled to address the convention Tuesday night, when she will either call her supporters to unite behind [Barack] Obama, or attempt to snatch the nomination and escape with it by helicopter to a secret mountain fortress.”

An unnamed “senior Obama supporter” tells Politico.com that aides to Mrs. Clinton negotiating over her role at the convention act “like Japanese soldiers in the South Pacific still fighting after the war is over.”

Even as the Democrats in Denver try to bring unity to their fractious party (the convention’s slogan, according to Mr. Barry, is, “A Unified Party, United in Unity, Together as One, Undivided”), the party’s genetic coding for self-destruction was taking over.

On Sunday, the Gallup Organization released a poll saying that fewer than half of those who supported Sen. Clinton of New York during the primaries said they definitely will vote for Sen. Obama of Illinois in November. Forty-seven percent of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters said they are solidly behind Mr. Obama; another 23 percent said their support is soft. Thirty percent said they’d vote for Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona or sit out the election altogether.

The Republican Party’s impressive response team was ready with a campaign spot featuring a Clinton supporter who now supports Mr. McCain, as well as a second spot questioning why Mr. Obama chose Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware over Mrs. Clinton as his running mate.

All of which suggests that when she speaks tonight in prime time, Mrs. Clinton will have the important role in the convention that she demanded, although not the precise one she wanted. She will have to be an agent of unity. Given her Bataan Death March primary campaign, it’s not a role that fits her very well. She’ll have to be a lot more persuasive — and, we dare say, sincere — than she has been to date.

Most voters alive today can’t remember when the nominating conventions last included any meaningful suspense, when ballot followed ballot and floor whips twisted arms and made outrageous promises in return for votes. Today’s conventions (of both parties) belong to marketers and message experts, to say nothing of the corporate lobbyists who tiptoe through new ethics rules (bagels for breakfast, OK; eggs for breakfast, not OK; quesadillas con queso, OK; quesadillas con carne, not OK) in wining and dining the powerful and the would-be powerful.

Political junkies have the opportunity to overdose on this all day long (Wow! Claire McCaskill!) on cable networks and websites. But the true public work of the convention is reserved for the prime-time hour between 9 and 10 p.m. each night (Central time) when the broadcast networks beam convention events to a mass audience. Michelle Obama, the candidate’s wife, got last night’s key slot.

Tuesday night went to Mrs. Clinton; her husband, the former president, is scheduled for a non-prime-time slot on Wednesday, playing second fiddle to Mr. Biden, presented to the world early Saturday morning as Mr. Obama’s choice as running mate.

It was a solid choice. Those who know Mr. Biden only for his self-indulgent rhetorical excesses are missing one of the brightest minds in the U.S. Senate. He is a formidable campaigner; quick on his feet and deft with the needle. His foreign policy experience fills a gaping hole in Mr. Obama’s bona fides. At least 90 percent of a president’s job lies in picking smart, independent people to carry out his policies. If a President Obama’s appointments are as good as Candidate Obama’s first appointment, the nation would be well served.

But first there is a campaign to be waged and an election to be won. What Mrs. Clinton says tonight — and how she says it — could have a great deal of bearing on that.