Secretidentityx suggested an out-of-the-box convention approach which I think bears repeating and polishing.
While I disagree with his suggestion of having former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan anywhere near a Democratic convention podium, I want to set forth the reasons why it would be an excellent idea to ask someone like Warren Buffett address the American people on the important issues facing America in this election.
As the Iraq War proved, and still continues to prove, we live in a highly-partisan, highly-polarized world right now. It seems like we Democrats have our facts, and the Republicans have their facts. Most of you know that Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that we're entitled to have our different opinions -- but not our different facts. But political science teaches us that partisanship acts a screen for information -- our opinions ultimately determine which facts we accept, and which ones we don't. This is especially true when the messengers are readily-identified as being partisan propagandists.
Our party's ability to get our message across depends upon us finding messengers who have credibility outside of our partisan universe. It is imperative to find folks who are not professional politicians and who have nothing to gain from spinning the truth in order to penetrate the fog of partisan thinking.
The most obvious example of this is Ross Perot, who played an important role in 1992 in explaining to erstwhile Republicans and independents why the national debt was a serious problem, a task that would have been impossible for any of the Democratic candidates (even Bill Clinton, or "Saint Paul" Tsongas). Although self-serving (the man was running for President after all), Perot could present himself as a credible "expert witness" on the economy because he was largely not tainted by partisan politics.
What the Democrats need is someone who can do what Ross Perot did in 1992: speak to the American people in common-sensical terms, throwing around enough numbers and charts to get his point across effectively.
As noted above, I think Warren Buffett would be an excellent "expert witness" in making the case to the American people that John McCain's tax and budget plans will hurt the middle class and "give away the store" to the fabulously wealthy. As the head of Berkshire Hathaway and an investment guru whom millions of Americans trust and revere, Buffett would have the kind of cachet that no also-ran Presidential candidate could hope for (sorry, even Joe Biden).
Of course, there's no reason to believe that Buffett would necessarily lend his good-name to our partisan ambitions. But it would be reckless, in my opinion, for our party leaders not to at least invite him to use our convention as a soapbox for a stern-but-folksy lecture on economic policy.
And though I think Secretidentityx was off-base in suggesting former Bush flack McClellan to take on the war issue, there is no reason that we couldn't have a "made for TV brain trust" on that issue as well. Wesley Clark will probably get a speaking slot if he wants one, but why not invite Richard Clarke or Anthony Zinni to speak as well, if only for a short time?
But of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.