Obama at the Kohl Center
February 13, 2008
Can twenty thousand Madison residents stand patiently outside in 8° weather for an hour and a half, in order to get into a packed-to-the-rafters Kohl Center, with people sitting in the aisles, and on the stairs, and in a huge overflow room? Yes we can.
After getting seated, can we wait patiently for another hour for Governor Doyle to introduce Obama, while doing every conceivable iteration of the wave? Yes we can.
It was like any other political speech, only better.
The discourse on hope was more down to earth than the abbreviated version that comes through in the press. Obama talked explicitly about his experience in the Illinois legislature, and about how the process works best when politicians and grass-roots movements mobilize constituencies to support or oppose various laws, and about different ways to achieve that mobilization.
He spoke about individual responsibility, and about a pragmatic liberalism that looks to provide freedom and opportunity on an individual level, especially when talking about health care. It was, frankly, the sort of thing that I wish more progressive politicians spoke about more often: not just health care as a policy to be desired, but about the benefits of universal coverage when it comes to freedom in the job market, or the ability to care for aging parents, etc.
There was also a sense that the nomination might now be in hand, and that it was time to turn the rhetorical guns on McCain instead of Clinton. There were references to the “Bush-McCain war and the Bush-McCain tax cuts for the rich”. After paying tribute to McCain’s military service, and acknowledging him as an honorable man (I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.), Obama got in some digs at McCain for his flip-flopping and pandering. He mocked him for wanting to stay in Iraq for a hundred years. He emphasized the need not just to end the war, but to end the mindset that got us into the war, the mindset that sees 9/11 primarily as a means of scaring up votes, and that views fear as a political weapon to be used against American voters.
An apparently new proposal to give tax credits for college kids who volunteer for community service, the Peace Corps, the foreign service, etc. got a huge, extended ovation from the crowd.
I was on the fence for a while in this race, leaning towards Obama, but recognizing the impressive policy credentials of Senator Clinton, too. I didn’t want to see Obama fall into the “hope in the virtues of good government” trap that has been the bane of reform-minded Democrats from Paul Tsongas to Bill Bradley to Gary Hart. Obama was running a style of campaign that, in the hands of someone with less skill, could have easily devolved into a substanceless personality cult.
Those doubts have been fading rapidly for months, as Obama’s strengths as a campaigner have become clearer, and they’re gone now. Obama’s the real deal, and I’ll be voting for him on Tuesday.
February 14th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08steinem.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
February 15th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Thanks for posting some details of Obama’s talk. This is the first time I’ve heard that he talks about organizing but timing is everything.
I had just reread this article from 1995 when he was first delving into politics and talking about the potentials in organizing as the driving force in wanting to enter.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/obama/951208/
Even from the speeches we see on TV (along with the way his campaign is organized) it seemed our role wouldn’t be over after he became President if he had his way…but wondered if he’d kept that vision through the years. kept the idea of making it real.
We are lucky to have this man running for president. The more I learn of his past or his present the better I feel about the future.
February 15th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Thanks for the link. That Chicago Reader article is fascinating. It’s more evidence that there is a concrete and realistic understanding of (small-d) democratic politics behind the hope thing.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:00 am
When the campaign first started someone did a count of how many times Obama and Clinton each said *I*…
Nearly all of Clintons speeches, press interviews, etc are nearly exclusively in the first person *I*. Obama’s speeches, and to a lessor extent his press interviews, were focused on the third person *we*.
It’s those community organizer roots. His whole message is peppered with how an engaged *community*, no matter the size apparently, can drive real change.
I agree with him.
I also understand that the Clintons embody the big government capital D Democrats that will fix it for you.
When I read the Chicago Reader piece, it’s uncanny how he outlines the three problems then and echos those same three things throughout his approach today.
The guy, apparently, walks the talk.
BTW, Keisha Thompson @ 1…Steinem is making excuses which is something real feminists don’t do.