Specifically Negative: Obama Shows He Is Not Above The Fight

By Kleinheider Posted on August 28, 2008 at 11:54 pm

I must say I was surprised by this speech. One would have expected at this moment in time, speaking to the largest audience live and on television that he has likely ever engaged at length, Obama would have delivered a high powered version of the inspirational speeches that made him the transcendent political figure he has become.

While the speech was certainly quintessential Obama in parts, in other ways, it was a departure and certainly not what one would have expected for the occasion. Ben Smith has said the speech was an example of both offense and defense, but one stuck out more than the other. Obama made the negative case against McCain a centerpoint in a way I don’t think many would have predicted.

The knock against Obama is that he is too grandiose. The knock against Obama is that his speeches, while inspirational, are, to a certain extent, utopian, sentimental fluff.

Not tonight. Not entirely anyway.

Tonight, not only did he go after McCain in an, at times, angry fashion, he offered far more in terms of explicit policy provisions than he usually does, at least in most speeches I have seen. He laid out, not just the case against McCain, but he laid out his case, his very liberal case, for where he wants to take America.

This speech showed Obama’s pragmatic side. Not ideological pragmatism, not at all. He laid out a more explicitly progressive agenda than is usual for a candidate with half a chance of winning in this country. But tactically, Obama seems to have taken the copious criticisms of his political persona to heart.

Obama took the fight to John McCain in way one would not have expected of a candidate who tries to be above politics as much as possible. This speech reveals that Obama is aware that he cannot rely on purely on his charisma and rhetorical skill alone. He recognizes that he will not coast to victory just on the cult of celebrity which has been created around him.

A normal Democrat, in this political climate, could get away with staying above it all and let the economy and the disaster in Iraq speak for itself and make the Republican try and bring him down.

Obama clearly realizes that he is not just any Democrat. He has deficiencies and and liabilities that are very much unique to him. Yes, Obama has to be Obama and no doubt he will be. He has to inspire and he has to expand the electorate. But he cannot be above the fight.

This speech proves that Obama knows this. This speech was bad news for John McCain.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic convention, Invesco  

Harold Ford, Jr. Recalls His Experience Keynoting The 2000 Democratic Convention

By Kleinheider Posted on August 24, 2008 at 11:49 pm

Apparently, there were some in the party who wanted Ford to provide more “color commentary”:

I think the speech that some had in mind for me to give was a little more of a civil-rights speech. When I say “civil rights,” I really mean kind of their version of civil rights, a little too much of a race component to it, which had never been my politics. Any time you give a speech at that level, there are always ideas that some in the campaign, some in the convention, have. But we worked through all those issues.

Having gone over the speech 20 times before, I knew it. And when I ended, it felt great.

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Tags: Democratic convention, Harold Ford  

Former Virginia Gov. To Keynote Democratic Convention

By Kleinheider Posted on August 13, 2008 at 7:22 am

Mike Allen reports:

Reflecting new Democratic optimism about the South, former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner will keynote the party’s national convention in Denver two weeks from now.

Warner appealed successfully to NASCAR Democrats in his election as governor, running strongly in rural areas and with working-class social conservatives.

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Tags: Democratic convention, keynote, Mark Warner, The Future