By the time you read these words, you will know how delegates and pundits reacted to Hillary Clinton's speech to the delegates. From the vantage point of Tuesday afternoon, however, uncertainty remains and some are pessimistic.

"Hillary can't win," the Washington Post's Marie Cocco wrote today. Hillary will be "damned" for too much enthusiasm or for too little. "She will either be deemed too cool or all-too-cagily warm."

Call me crazy, but I'm not so sure. If anything, I see huge opportunity for Clinton to both boost the Democratic ticket and repair some of the ill will toward Clinton among Barack Obama's most enthusiastic supporters.

The decision by the McCain campaign to release (if not air) three different television advertisements this week invoking Clinton's criticisms of Obama during the primaries provides her with a huge tactical opportunity.

Recent surveys provide evidence of the opportunity to help. Last week's CBS/New York Times survey [PDF] shows 60 percent of Clinton's primary supporters backing Obama, and the the biggest percentage of undecided voters among women who supported Clinton in the primaries (18 percent) and white women generally (15 percent).

Last week's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows an even smaller share of Clinton primary voters (52 percent) supporting Obama, with even more (27 percent) undecided. Further, the 11 percent of registered voters that would support Clinton but not Obama against John McCain tend to be women with lower incomes. "They are not happy with the direction of the country," writes the Journal's Laura Meckler, "they don't like President Bush, and they want Congress to be controlled by Democrats."

No one has more credibility with these voters than Hillary Clinton. "The Democratic convention is more than a coronation," pollster Peter Hart explained to MSNBC's First Read. "It is an event where the words of Hillary Clinton are probably going to be exceptionally important."

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll also demonstrates, indirectly, why Clinton was not the obvious choice as Obama's running mate despite these numbers. Clinton ran four points better in a hypothetical match-up against McCain (with 49 percent of the vote) than Obama (with 45 percent). Many interpreted that finding, as well as those summarized above, as proof positive that Clinton was a no-brainer choice as running mate.

However, the fact that Hart identified 11 percent of the sample as supporting Clinton-not-Obama, and since Clinton ran 4 points better than Obama, that implies that 7 percent of the sample supported Obama and not Clinton. These voters are presumably just as hostile toward Clinton and the Clinton-not-Obama voters are to Obama. Another question in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that nearly half the registered voters (49 percent) "would not like to see Hillary as President some day." An Obama-Clinton ticket would have been a risky proposition.

Clinton's speech, however, poses none of these risks. And the decision by the McCain campaign to release (if not air) three different television advertisements this week invoking Clinton's criticisms of Obama during the primaries provides her with a huge tactical opportunity for what would become one of the conventions' most memorable moments.

"I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton, and I do not approve of that message," she told the New York delegation yesterday. In her speech, she can do more. I am not a speechwriter, but the "truth hurts" tagline of the first of these spots seems like an obvious opening for riff on the records of Bush and McCain.

By the time you read this, you will know if she grabbed what seems to be an opportunity tailor-made for the moment.