“the goofs running Obama’s campaign” ? – In the middle of O’s speech last night Alex C. – longtime republican political consultant, Mac man now – former biggie in Romney’s campaign – turned to Carl Bernstein – fellow CNN “analyst” – and said – “Glad I’m not advising a republican candidate this year.” Bernstein asked him if he could quote his line…Castellanos sheepishly said ok. Followed up that one after the speech by allowing that the pub(s) who did NOT get picked as VP for this ticket will likely turn out to be the lucky one…- Alex C. wasn’t in the stadium – he was removed from the collective glow that seemed to have everybody in that extraordinarily integrated crowd shining at the realization of MLK’s promise. He just saw the images and and heard O’s masterful speech…One nice touch. I was worried that the “goofs” (dream on guys!)running O’s campaign would forget to go Country at some point during the eve. (Got no use for Will I Am!) But the eve ended witb Brooks and Dunn. Same song Bush used in 2004…Brilliant. Here’s Andrew Sullivan’s short take on the speech…
It was a deeply substantive speech, full of policy detail, full of people other than the candidate, centered overwhelmingly on domestic economic anxiety. It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism – in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy.
What he didn’t do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again … and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.
He took every assault on him and turned them around. He showed not just that he understood the experience of many middle class Americans, but that he understood how the Republicans have succeeded in smearing him. And he didn’t shrink from the personal charges; he rebutted them. Whoever else this was, it was not Adlai Stevenson. It was not Jimmy Carter. And it was less afraid and less calculating than Bill Clinton.
Above all, he took on national security – face on, full-throttle, enraged, as we should all be, at how disastrously American power has been handled these past eight years. He owned this issue in a way that no Democrat has owned it since Kennedy. That’s a transformative event. To my mind, it is vital that both parties get to own the war on Jihadist terror and that we escape this awful Rove-Morris trap that poisons the discourse into narrow and petty partisan abuse of patriotism. Obama did this tonight. We are in his debt.
Look: I’m biased at this point. I’m one of those people, deeply distressed at what has happened to America, deeply ashamed of my own misjudgments, who has shifted out of my ideological comfort zone because this man seems different to me, and this moment in history seems different to me. I’m not sure we have many more chances to get off the addiction to foreign oil, to prevent a calamitous terrorist attack, to restore constitutional balance in the hurricane of a terror war.
I’ve said it before – months and months ago. I should say it again tonight. This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.
Know hope.
Sullivan is right re O as the reviver of Liberalism. That’s exactly what he’s been up too. Libs have been Out of Time since the late 60s. A function of History I think – They just weren’t quite up to the moment. Too removed from everyday people. Especially after Bobby & MLK…Nobody was around who could formulate/articulate the lessons of the American Organizing tradition – And then it became too hard for anyone with an imagination on the Left to dial back on race-based rage (in particular). Doubt there was a way for the ”liberal-minded” to get traction in an Age when the rhythm of the times gave us George Wallace & Spiro & Eldridge Cleaver calling out Thurgood Marshall as a “Tonto, bootlicker & nigger pig” – So the politics of empathy/solidarity faded. The best you could do was Donahue-ism – “I feel your pain.” But, get real, it’s all about ME. I’ll fuck you but don’t expect me to remember your name…Kiddo – Unless you’re good for a Sister Souljah moment. Obama has an imagination that takes him out of his self – as per Sullivani below – a speech ‘full of people other than the candidate” – people evoked not as stand-ins for issues but as the End.
