Maine may be many miles from the Mile High City but Bill Clinton, inimitably, demonstrated on Wednesday night in Denver that the distance can be bridged. But he left it up to Barack Obama to do it.

To describe the 42nd president as a piece of work is an understatement. But, in less than half an hour, short by his standards, he showed why he was elected twice to lead the country and why his wife, heiress to the Democratic royal family until the Obamas came along, and her own speech the previous night notwithstanding, could not win their fiefdom’s nomination.