The Democratic presidential convention finally reached its dramatic and historic climax Thursday night as Barack Obama, appearing in a stadium packed with nearly 80,000 wildly cheering supporters, kicked a 67-yard field goal to defeat the Oakland Raiders in overtime. He also formally accepted the Democratic nomination, thereby becoming the first Hawaiian-born Indonesian-educated African-American ever to become a major-party presidential candidate since Al Gore.

I was on the convention floor Wednesday for the historic roll-call vote that nominated Obama. The roll call is one of the most entertaining parts of any convention, because it's when the state-delegation chairpersons, before casting their votes, name the various things that their states are proud of, as in:

"Madam Secretary, the great state of [name of some state that no normal person would ever call "great"], where the wind blows horizontally and water goes down the drain counter-clockwise; birthplace of the inventor of a key chemical component of Cool Ranch Doritos; home of the world's largest organically grown rutabaga ..."

Read the full column on MiamiHerald.com.