Bill Clinton makes a special case to convention: For Hillary Clinton

PHILADELPHIA — He had triumphed in speeches to Democratic conventions, and he had bombed. He had spoken twice to accept his party’s presidential nomination, and so bright was his star, even as a former president, that in 2004 he was slotted as far as possible from the nominee.

But on Tuesday night, Bill Clinton gave a speech unlike any of his previous seven: one making the case for his partner in a marriage that has been the most politically important since Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s — and the most fraught.

Alternately wonkish and romantic, he could not have been more flattering, more proud, or more loving. He contrasted the Hillary Clinton described last week at the Republican convention with what he repeatedly called “the real one.’’

“She is still the best darn change maker I have ever known,’’ he said. “You could drop her in any trouble spot — pick one — come back in a month … and somehow she will have made it better. That’s just how she is.’’