Dem Convention Closer Fulfills Part of King’s Dream of 45 Years Ago
“Our government should work for us, not against us.” […]
“If John McCain wants have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
– Barack Obama at Invesco Stadium, Aug. 28, 2008.
Regardless of the Usual Big Media Wretches sniffing around for some kind of disunity story, both Bill and Hillary Clinton graciously and unreservedly endorsed Barack Obama with resounding speeches, bringing the Denver convention to its feet. Others like John Kerry, Bill Richardson and Iraq War vet Rep. Patrick Murphy also gave good speeches, but you’d have to watch C-Span to catch them in their entirety since MSNBC and, especially, CNN, preferred to air the rumblings of their own teams of feeble prognosticators and analysts to the words from the podium.
But all of that was the set-up to Thursday night, when Obama appeared before an audience of over 70,000 at Invesco Stadium to formally accept the Democratic nomination for president. The heat was on, and some in the Eternally Damned Pundit Class predicted Obama would blow it with a high-minded ‘professorial’ diatribe that condescended to the average voter as it bored them silly. They were wrong.
Obama laid into a stem-winder, jazzing up the crowd as he proved he’s going to fight McCain by returning fire on some of the Republican’s recent attacks and leaving Cap’n McCain’s Swift Boat dead in the water. Celebrity status? Damn right – the jealous GOP would kill for that kind of popularity. Grecian columns? You’ve got to be kidding. A Nuremberg rally redux hallucination? Peggy Noonan needs to lay off the sauce. Squirrel-bait Jerry Corsi’s crackpot work of fiction? Get a net.
All of the rightie tripe and snipe faded back to the dark pit from whence it came as Obama spelled out point-by-point where he was going to take the country, refuted every McCain negative ad, and then went after Sen. Maverick’s flip-flopping hide. In the clutch, Obama brought his A-game and rolled over the opposition like a Straight-Talk cement mixer.
(Incidentally, in all fairness to John McCain, he did air an ad yesterday cordially congratulating Obama on his historic nomination, although his campaign also attacked Obama on the same day, even after McCain said in his congratulatory ad, “Tomorrow we’ll be back at it, but tonight, senator, job well done.” What is it with this guy?)
Barring any unforeseen and unlikely total meltdown, we just heard the next president of the United States speaking at Invesco Stadium last night.
How can I say that with two months to go until the election? Let’s look at some factoids mixed with obvious observations:
— Obama can easily muster more than 70,000 avid supporters to fill a football field in Denver; McCain would have trouble filling 10,000 seats in a hall in Dayton.
– Obama has charisma; McCain has a resume.
– Obama can write his own speeches; McCain can barely read his.
– Obama inspires; McCain perspires.
– Obama has a message of change from the policies of the worst president in history; McCain has photos of himself hugging the worst president in history.
– Obama’s audiences are energized; McCain’s are sleepy.
– Obama can remember how many homes he owns (one); McCain has to ask his staff.
– Obama has plans to reenergize the failing economy; McCain has advisors who blame Americans for whining about the failing economy
– Obama is organizing on the ground in every state, just as he did in the primaries; McCain’s ground game is sluggish, shaky and much too top-heavy.
– Obama is solid with 80 percent of Democrats and successfully reaching beyond his party’s base; 47 percent of McCain’s base would like another candidate.
– Obama is a Democrat in a Democratic year; McCain is still, unless he flips on that too, a loathed Republican.
Moreover, My Anonymous Source Close to the Obama Camp (with the unfortunate acronym MASCOC – sorry, pal), reports that, as he moves around the country and talks to regular Americans at truck stops, bars and coffee shops, McCain is not all that well-liked and Obama is much more popular with folks who don’t have land-line phones or refuse to talk to, or are unreachable by, pollsters. (That would be the majority these days.) MASCOC also claims that Obama was playing possum in August, letting the GOP vent all the vicious bile that he knew was coming to see what he was up against, and, meanwhile, gearing up to refute the smears and tell the truth about McCain. By the start of the Republican convention, we’ll be seeing new Obama ads reframing McCain, and MASCOC says they’re devastating.
Lincoln said we are the last, best hope in a dismal world; Obama is the only one of the two major-party candidates selling hope this year; McCain’s peddling GOP crack – fear, tax cuts, war, nasty ads – praying the worn-out formula will work one more time. After Obama’s performance last night, I think not.
No doubt the Republican Hate Machine will spend the next two months trying to whittle Obama down to size, but, this time around, they’re stuck with a rubber knife. Last night, Obama proved to the crowd at Invesco, and to the television audience around the world, that he’s not going to be the next Dukakis, Gore or Kerry – he’s his own man, it’s not Reagan’s America anymore, and he’s going to fight for every vote.
When Obama is president, I believe we’ll finally be on our way to restoring what we were founded to be — an Age of Enlightenment nation ruled by reason and law — with a government that works for the people again, as it did in FDR’s day.
But more than that, keeping our Constitutional promise of equality, now even children who didn’t happen to be born white will live in a country where they, too, can think that one day they might grow up to be president. It may be a generation or two before the ignorance of racism in our culture disappears completely, but Obama’s election will be an enormous step in the right direction.
If nothing else, that is a change we can believe in — and something worth voting for less than a half-century after Dr. Martin Luther King said “I Have a Dream.”
“…[F]or many of our white brothers … have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream,” Aug. 28, 1963.
The Tattlesnake – If Obama Keeps This Up, It’s All Over But the Shouting Edition
Dem Convention Closer Fulfills Part of King’s Dream of 45 Years Ago
“Our government should work for us, not against us.” […]
“If John McCain wants have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
– Barack Obama at Invesco Stadium, Aug. 28, 2008.
Regardless of the Usual Big Media Wretches sniffing around for some kind of disunity story, both Bill and Hillary Clinton graciously and unreservedly endorsed Barack Obama with resounding speeches, bringing the Denver convention to its feet. Others like John Kerry, Bill Richardson and Iraq War vet Rep. Patrick Murphy also gave good speeches, but you’d have to watch C-Span to catch them in their entirety since MSNBC and, especially, CNN, preferred to air the rumblings of their own teams of feeble prognosticators and analysts to the words from the podium.
But all of that was the set-up to Thursday night, when Obama appeared before an audience of over 70,000 at Invesco Stadium to formally accept the Democratic nomination for president. The heat was on, and some in the Eternally Damned Pundit Class predicted Obama would blow it with a high-minded ‘professorial’ diatribe that condescended to the average voter as it bored them silly. They were wrong.
Obama laid into a stem-winder, jazzing up the crowd as he proved he’s going to fight McCain by returning fire on some of the Republican’s recent attacks and leaving Cap’n McCain’s Swift Boat dead in the water. Celebrity status? Damn right – the jealous GOP would kill for that kind of popularity. Grecian columns? You’ve got to be kidding. A Nuremberg rally redux hallucination? Peggy Noonan needs to lay off the sauce. Squirrel-bait Jerry Corsi’s crackpot work of fiction? Get a net.
All of the rightie tripe and snipe faded back to the dark pit from whence it came as Obama spelled out point-by-point where he was going to take the country, refuted every McCain negative ad, and then went after Sen. Maverick’s flip-flopping hide. In the clutch, Obama brought his A-game and rolled over the opposition like a Straight-Talk cement mixer.
(Incidentally, in all fairness to John McCain, he did air an ad yesterday cordially congratulating Obama on his historic nomination, although his campaign also attacked Obama on the same day, even after McCain said in his congratulatory ad, “Tomorrow we’ll be back at it, but tonight, senator, job well done.” What is it with this guy?)
Barring any unforeseen and unlikely total meltdown, we just heard the next president of the United States speaking at Invesco Stadium last night.
How can I say that with two months to go until the election? Let’s look at some factoids mixed with obvious observations:
— Obama can easily muster more than 70,000 avid supporters to fill a football field in Denver; McCain would have trouble filling 10,000 seats in a hall in Dayton.
– Obama has charisma; McCain has a resume.
– Obama can write his own speeches; McCain can barely read his.
– Obama inspires; McCain perspires.
– Obama has a message of change from the policies of the worst president in history; McCain has photos of himself hugging the worst president in history.
– Obama’s audiences are energized; McCain’s are sleepy.
– Obama can remember how many homes he owns (one); McCain has to ask his staff.
– Obama has plans to reenergize the failing economy; McCain has advisors who blame Americans for whining about the failing economy
– Obama is organizing on the ground in every state, just as he did in the primaries; McCain’s ground game is sluggish, shaky and much too top-heavy.
– Obama is solid with 80 percent of Democrats and successfully reaching beyond his party’s base; 47 percent of McCain’s base would like another candidate.
– Obama is a Democrat in a Democratic year; McCain is still, unless he flips on that too, a loathed Republican.
Moreover, My Anonymous Source Close to the Obama Camp (with the unfortunate acronym MASCOC – sorry, pal), reports that, as he moves around the country and talks to regular Americans at truck stops, bars and coffee shops, McCain is not all that well-liked and Obama is much more popular with folks who don’t have land-line phones or refuse to talk to, or are unreachable by, pollsters. (That would be the majority these days.) MASCOC also claims that Obama was playing possum in August, letting the GOP vent all the vicious bile that he knew was coming to see what he was up against, and, meanwhile, gearing up to refute the smears and tell the truth about McCain. By the start of the Republican convention, we’ll be seeing new Obama ads reframing McCain, and MASCOC says they’re devastating.
Lincoln said we are the last, best hope in a dismal world; Obama is the only one of the two major-party candidates selling hope this year; McCain’s peddling GOP crack – fear, tax cuts, war, nasty ads – praying the worn-out formula will work one more time. After Obama’s performance last night, I think not.
No doubt the Republican Hate Machine will spend the next two months trying to whittle Obama down to size, but, this time around, they’re stuck with a rubber knife. Last night, Obama proved to the crowd at Invesco, and to the television audience around the world, that he’s not going to be the next Dukakis, Gore or Kerry – he’s his own man, it’s not Reagan’s America anymore, and he’s going to fight for every vote.
When Obama is president, I believe we’ll finally be on our way to restoring what we were founded to be — an Age of Enlightenment nation ruled by reason and law — with a government that works for the people again, as it did in FDR’s day.
But more than that, keeping our Constitutional promise of equality, now even children who didn’t happen to be born white will live in a country where they, too, can think that one day they might grow up to be president. It may be a generation or two before the ignorance of racism in our culture disappears completely, but Obama’s election will be an enormous step in the right direction.
If nothing else, that is a change we can believe in — and something worth voting for less than a half-century after Dr. Martin Luther King said “I Have a Dream.”
“…[F]or many of our white brothers … have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream,” Aug. 28, 1963.