The news comes as yet another blow to Romney's social media campaigning efforts; last week he invested at least $120,000 in a Twitter campaign that backfired.

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That reprise of the shopworn feminist slogan -- "the personal is political" -- was the essential premise of her entire speech. In a cloyingly theatrical modern tradition, first ladies attend the national conventions to testify about biography, not policy; they talk about the man as only they know him. But Michelle Obama managed to effortlessly marshal both to tell a story about change in America -- with the promise of more to come -- and to deliver her speech transcendantly.

She and Ann Romney both talked about first dates, about hard times and bad cars and tuna fish, about abiding love for their husbands. But putting aside the inconvenient question of whether mortgage payments or stock portfolios say anything about how someone will govern, the first lady holds the biographical trump card. The Obamas' narrative of upward mobility, of meritocracy working, is much more plausible. And without getting in the muck of any sort, Michelle suggested that there is both a policy argument for her husband and, without naming him, a strong contrast with Mitt Romney.

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