[img_assist|nid=870|title=Ted Sorensen|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=150|height=209]The Kennedy presence at the Democratic National Committee Convention persisted this evening as Ted Sorensen, a special counselort to President John F. Kennedy, took the dais shortly after 5:30 p.m.

"In my more than 50 years of national Democratic conventions," the famous speechwriter said, "this is one of the most important."

Sorensen has seen a number of conventions. He became a top adviser to John Kennedy shortly after he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952. He was with Kennedy at the 1956 Democratic National Convention during the unsuccessful bid for the vice presidential nomination.

"I have long dreamed that our party would produce another president matching John Kennedy's intellect and integrity; his compassion and care for all; his capacity to inspire justice at home and peace around the world. And this week my dream is coming true."

"Once in a lifetime," Sorensen quoted an anonymous poet, "hope and history meet in one extraordinary man and movement."

"I thank the good Lord that i have lived long enough to meet and like such a man twice in my lifetime in John Kennedy and Barack Obama.

He closed with a poem of his own:

We have the man we need at last
To embrace the future and not the past
And dispel eight years of pain and shame.
Barack Obama is his name.

"Call the roll," he said.

Unlike 52 years ago, they've got the votes this time.