Too triumphal
Wolf Blitzer at CNN said he was “blessed” to have had a front row seat at the Obama event. The other news channels (bar Fox) offered varieties of the same adulating verdict. Yet I walked away wondering if the fireworks, the confetti, the sheer triumphalism on display were not a bit too much. Surely it must irk the majority of Americans who make up their mind between the conventions and polling day? Mind you, Brits often bridle at schmaltzy endings to American films and perhaps this is the same thing.
Obama’s speech was superb, as you’d expect from perhaps the finest orator in the politics today. Plenty of his ideas would be the sort I’d love to hear from Cameron. He’ll cut taxes for 95% of “all working families – because in an economy like this the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.” He emphasised the family, how government can never replace a role of a father (a point first made by the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, in the 1970s). Obama pledged to “go through the Federal Budget line by line” because “we cannot meet 21st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy”. I can’t, though, quite see President Obama starving the beast. But you have to applaud the sentiment. Profligate though Bush has been, I’m not sure cutting his waste would pay for Obama’s expensive promises.
Chief amongst them is “affordable healthcare for every American” – a noble cause, but a hugely expensive one. His plan for “fuel-efficient cars of the future built right here in America” sounds like a Franco-German policy of “national champions.” It wouldn’t work as government can’t decide what industries will prosper. His plans to create 5,000 new jobs is just nonsense, and his jihad against outsourcing dangerously overlooks the fact that this trend has been a net job creator by freeing up space the economy for new industries (as was proven in a recent McKinsey study). Obama appears to be offering protectionism - the last thing any country needs in a downturn.
Yet, of course, this isn’t really the point. The main achievement of this evening was the drama. It was an extravaganza, a political version of the Beijing Olympics, the largest convention in American history and the like of which we’ll never see in Britain because our politicians don’t enthuse the public to the same extent. The television pictures, which I’m just watching now, were stunning. The cameras didn’t catch the thousand-odd empty chairs and the flags which Democrat officials planted look spectacular in the sea of people. The strange Obama Temple thing they’d constructed also looked better on camera than the cumbersome, plastic construct the press could see on stage. And news pundits would have spoken over the protracted curtain calls at the end, making it look less indulgent than it seemed in the stadium.
John McCain is popping up on televisions tonight with an ad saying “I wanna stop and say: congratulations” and how appropriate that it is the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s speech. “Tomorrow we’ll be back at it but tonight, senator, a job well done.” And there can’t be much doubt on this point: this is a milestone and the several Dr King references unsubtly stamped throughout this convention do have a point. Tonight, a black man became a presidential candidate. But the journey to the next milestone – the White House – will be a far longer one than the celebrations in Mile High stadium seemed to suggest.
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murray
August 29th, 2008 8:47amJames, one of your best and most balanced posts of this election. I am looking forward to seeing how the race looks after McCain takes his turn next week. I am rooting for a McCain-Palin ticket which I think would be checkmate, but he will probably go with Pawlenty, a more traditional choice.
Al Wood
August 29th, 2008 9:11amAs I posted elsewhere on Coffee House, the set-up for Obama's speech smacks of the Sheffield Rally. Hubris. A major miscalculation on the Democrats' part.
Ian C
August 29th, 2008 10:21amDon't be taken in by his promise of tax cuts for 95% of Americans. His plan is Brown style tax creditts i.e. social security benefit increases dressed up as tax reductions. Smoke and mirrors learnt - from Blair and Brown.
Have yet to watch the speech but when I heard parts in the middle of the night he did seem to have lifted his dreary monotony of the past 2-3 months.
The Happy Carbon Footprint
August 29th, 2008 10:32amA "black man" has not become the presidential candidate. He's a man with a father from Kenya (and apparently points north, south, east and west) and a white American mother.
Fraser Nelson
August 29th, 2008 3:39pmHappy Carbon footprint, I know. I was trying to avoid the construct "African-American". The black delegates I spoke to hear refer to Obama as "black" it's the whites who use phrases like "person of colour". Interestingly when Obama's people played the Dr King clips at the convention last night they carefully cut out from sentences his references to the word "negro".
Al, every US convention reminds me of the Sheffield Rally - Kinnock kindly proved for us that this format goes down very badly indeed in Britain. Kinnock, of course, pioneered the Dean scream. Ian C, all Obama's economic policies seem almost comically dodgy to me. Yet interesting to note that both candidates have to pledge to cut taxes, even if they speaked with forked tounge.
YoYo
August 29th, 2008 4:11pmWhat I liked about the speech was the line about getting rid of America's dependency on Middle East oil within 10 years.
I suspect that's not achievable, but it's the sentiment that counts. It is the petrol dollars that have helped spread Wahhabism throughout Europe and particularly in Britain.
This vital element of starving this sort of thing of cash is now being articulated by Republicans and Democrats.
And in Britain?
Silence.
Oh, apart from the odd essay by Peter Oborne telling us all why we should sell more war planes to Saudi Arabia.
Three cheers for America.
Verity
August 29th, 2008 8:03pmFraser - ignorant people do cause so much damage; especially if they're the self-righteous type! Surely those people who removed the word "Negro" were aware that Negroid is one of the five races? That's like removing the word "sky" in case it offends some people, and replacing it with "space above" or something. There are people who are just as ignorant and self-righteous trying to get the word Mongoloid for the Mongoloid race changed to something else because the West had been using the word Mongoloid for children born with a specific birth defect. Let's not find a new definition for children born with this disability! Let's instead change the defintion of a race of billions of people, These busy little minds aren't anthropologists, so they don't have the disadvantage of talking from knowledge. Just "feelings". There is absolutely no reason to think of Negro as a perjorative, any more than there is to think of Caucasian as a perjorative.
Anyway, to my main point. It was noted on LGF last night that Obama appeared to be wearing much darker make-up than his skin tone. That in his temple of glory, his skin was nade up to look mahagony.
Hillary
September 3rd, 2008 5:32pmVerity- I noticed that too. Obama has gone through great pains recently to obscure the fact that he is half-white and raised by his white family. I can pretty much guess which organizations put the screws to him to have that happen.
Mr. Nelson- Wonderful piece. I try to read the Spectator here in the States as much as possible. But while the black delegates incorrectly refer to Obama as 'black', many other African-Americans do not. It is 100% political whether someone refers to Obama as black or not. Nonetheless, I understand your decision for the label. I personally refer to Obama as mixed as I, myself, am.