But that’s who he is. If the idea was to introduce Clinton to the nation last week, his acceptance speech was a true portrait. For 53 minutes, the three faces of Bill-person, politician and policy wonk–struggled for ascendancy, with varied results. Prolixity tranquilized passion. The policy wonk fared worst: even an orator of Mario Cuomo’s power -would have had trouble selling the Madison Square Garden Democrats on some of the ideas Clinton seems to be nibbling around, especially the whittling away of bureaucrats (100,000 fewer in four years was Clinton’s promise). The Democrats are the party of bureaucracy; public-sector-employee unions controlled about 25 percent of all delegates last week. They represent the bleeding heart of the Democratic Party, the special interest Clinton courted most assiduously through the primaries–and they sat on their hands for his best idea, the one that has generated ovations all year: a universal college-loan program that would allow students to pay off their education with two years of service (at a lower, nonunion wage) as teachers, social workers, cops and so on. The party of teachers and social workers is skeptical about such things. Indeed, most delegates probably disagree with their nominee on the “empowerment vs. entitlement” question. People who are “empowered” (another loathsome, but useful, word)-who manage their own housing projects, choose their own schools-have less need for bureaucracies to do it for them.

Clinton’s more important struggle was to pull his party away from social issues (abortion, gay rights) to the populist economic stuff that wins elections. All week long the easiest way to touch off an outburst in the hall was to mention Anita Hill. “These are the party activists,” Chairman Ron Brown admitted. “You talk about jobs and they’ll clap. You talk about choice and they’ll scream.” Clinton’s speech left them applauding rather than screaming; it may have played better in America than in the hall (although the candidate remains in serious need of an editor with a bullwhip).

Clinton the Pol fared much better. Indeed, he had a spectacular week, taming the party’s assorted spoilsports without much of a fuss. Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown were denied network television time (Brown’s week long temper tantrum was perhaps the most overt case of sibling rivalry in American political history; his sister Kathleen, the California state treasurer, is now one of the Democrats’ brightest hopes). Cuomo, who started the week with one of his Mario Moments on “Meet the Press,” repeating seven times that Clinton would raise taxes, gave a splendid, unequivocal nominating speech. And Clinton’s own speech was politically adept, inoculating him against the Republicans’ probable lines of attack-family value’s and his record in Arkansas. He even led the Democrats in the Pledge of Allegiance. More important, the Clinton operation continued to show its toughness. When the execrable Sally Jessy Raphael turned up another woman who claimed to have had an affair with the governor, Clinton’s staff had a list of phone numbers ready-former spouses, employers, friends and neighbors who said the woman couldn’t be trusted. Perhaps the most memorable line of the week-and the one that summarized the political staff’s take-no-prisoners attitude-was Cajun Ninja Consultant James Carville’s reaction to a suggestion that the campaign “reach out” to Perot adviser Hamilton Jordan: “I wouldn’t piss down his throat if his heart was on fire.”

The Bill Clinton who reintroduced himself to the nation last week would never think such a thing, of course. And this was the key to his resurgence, more important than policy or polities: in a week when Ross Perot broke a million hearts without breaking a sweat and George Bush was gone fishing, Bill Clinton was there, solid, persistent, maybe even dependable. He was beginning to seem the very opposite of a philanderer–a dogged suitor, not too good on the sweet talk, but earnest, thoughtful, well intentioned. “He spoke a language women understand,” said Ann Lewis, a Democratic strategist. “He said he learned his courage and fighting spirit from his mother.” This is a different sort of strength from Ronald Reagan’s bargain-basement John Wayne or George Bush’s failed attempt at Gary Cooper (“I’m a quiet man. . .”). It is more subtle, a relentless equanimity: this is a man who talks covenants. The Republicans will seek to exploit the equivocation that Clinton uses to maintain that equanimity, and they will, no doubt, succeed in bringing the Democrats down some from last week’s high. The post-convention polling “bump” was too fat to be very credible. But it was not unwelcome. After a year spent digging himself out of a hole, Clinton may well enjoy the exhilaration and risks that come with operating at higher altitudes.