Barack’s big night
Wow.
I agree with the pundits: If there was any doubt that Barack Obama could get out there and hold his own in a fierce contest with John McCain, Obama dispelled it tonight.
Obama made his entrance after a biographical video (see it here) in which he discussed his life in terms of things that connect him to average Americans: His childhood in a broken home. The difficulty his mother had in providing for him, the jobs she held, the food stamps she was forced to accept at one point, the worries she had about putting him through college. Her losing fight against breast cancer and his experience watching her fight with insurance companies “from her hospital bed,” he said. The worries his grandparents have about whether they can pay for health care on their fixed income.
Noticeably absent were the soaring, lyrical phrases for which Obama is known. There was no hint of the upper-crust celebrity overtone with which the McCain campaign has consistently hammered him for weeks.
The video was clearly meant to redraw the public’s perception about Obama: The campaign sought to portray him tonight as a guy who grew up in a regular home, met a regular girl, had a regular romance and has a regular family.
Almost.
The one line from the video that stuck with me was when Obama explained how he got involved as a community organizer (4:57 on the tape). It is what distinguishes him and what makes him drive for the presidency:
“You read about some injustice, and you say, ‘That’s not right; somebody should fix that.’” Obama said. “You realize, nobody else is going to fix it if you don’t.”
The video set the table nicely for his speech—which, as usual, was widely praised when it was over, but for none of the usual reasons.
The bio piece had been a clue to the address itself: It wasn’t the usual Obama speech, packed with soaring rhetoric and loaded with lofty language. This was the working lunch equivalent of an acceptance speech. I once heard an author-musician say about a song she had written that if she ever penned an autobiography, “It may be longer, but it will say no more.”
Obama’s speech was longer, but it said no more than this: “Let’s get ready to rumble.”
The speech was all about “the change we need” and Obama’s case for making that change. He never said so explicitly, but Obama argued that “the change we need” is modern liberalism.
It’s easy to miss that message. After all, it’s couched in all that talk about bipartisanship, a “new kind of politics” and “finding common ground.” And there were plenty of times when Obama sounded downright Republican. Listen to these phrases from the speech:
These are all tenets of the Republican Party. That third quote is from Abraham Lincoln, for goodness’ sake.
Was I suddenly watching CNN live from Minneapolis?
No, I was watching a brilliant defense of liberal political philosophy, couched in the language of the opposition. As such, Obama was able to make the case in a way that was completely unapologetic. It allowed him to “claim the moral high ground,” as longtime Clinton strategist Paul Begala noted, on issues—even abortion, guns and gay marriage—that Democrats on the federal level have avoided for so long. Not only did Obama not seek to minimize his differences with McCain on issues both foreign and domestic, he highlighted them and then built a compelling case for why he believes he is right and McCain is wrong.
It was very much a bare-knuckles speech. Here are two examples.
First, on the Republican concept of the “ownership society:”
It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care; it’s because John McCain doesn’t get it. For over two decades—for over two decades, he’s subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy: Give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.
In Washington, they call this the “Ownership Society,” but what it really means is that you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck, you’re on your own. No health care? The market will fix it. You’re on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, even if you don’t have boots. You are on your own.
Well, it’s time for them to own their failure ...
And then on national security, the issue on which McCain will stake his campaign and the issue that most observers believe Republicans have been able to use to defeat and minimize Democrats on the national stage:
If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have. For—for while—while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats that we face. When John McCain said we could just muddle through in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights.
You know, John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives.
...We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe.
It got even more personal than that at one point when Obama responded to McCain’s slogan, “Country First:”
So I’ve got news for you, John McCain: We all put our country first.
It will be interesting to see whether McCain responds to Obama’s tone in kind next week. No doubt he’ll be tempted to do so, and there will likely be a spirited debate in his inner circle about whether that would be well advised. Doing so would irretrievably and irrevocably elevate the rhetoric of the campaign from now until Election Day, at the risk of alienating independents who are sick of “politics as usual.” Failing to respond in kind could be interpreted as weakness, or—and this is actually worse—aloofness.
But Barack Obama very clearly called out John McCain on these issues and for the balance of the 10 weeks until Election Day. It’s part of why GOP strategist Alex Castellanos said that “whoever didn’t get picked for McCain’s VP this afternoon is probably a lucky Republican.”
We’ll begin to see tomorrow whether McCain chooses to engage Obama.
I have to admit, there is one part of me that is sincerely hoping that he does. How terrific would it be for these candidates to spend the next 10 weeks defending not only themselves and their campaign promises, but their underlying political philosophies, too? When in recent memory have we been able to have an impassioned, cerebral, non-fearmongering debate about liberalism versus conservatism?
The course of this country for at least the next four years will be determined by whether Americans choose the former or the latter.
[On a personal note, I have to admit that my favorite line of this speech was this one: “And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, because I want my daughters to have the exact same opportunities as your sons.”
On behalf of my three young daughters, I really dig that line.]
