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Obama starts to get concrete

James Forsyth

Wednesday, 21st May 2008

One of the challenges that Obama has faced in this campaign is how to blend his elevated, inspiring rhetoric with mundane policy detail. His speech last night, after he had secured a majority of pledged delegates, found a neat and effective way of doing this; starting each policy section with the line ‘Change is…’.

The address was, as you would expect an Obama speech to be, well crafted and delivered. He hit the patriotic high notes which are so potent coming from him, a black man. His peroration that “a better day is still possible if there are people willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it” was effective in showing that he is not just a conventional big government liberal. Although, to reinforce this impression he is going to need to be prepared to break away from this orthodoxy on some policy issues. I suspect education is where Obama will choose to do this, moving on from last night’s declaration that “the best education starts with parents who turn off the TV, and take away the video games, and read to our children once in awhile.”

Before we all start thinking about the campaign to come, it is worth reflecting on what Obama has already done. A first term Senator has just bested a politician with almost 100 percent name recognition and a pre-prepared network of support. It is a remarkable achievement. Obama has also pretty much guaranteed that a major party will run a minority candidate for president for the first time and, hopefully, provided inspiration to many kids who feared that the colour of their skin was a bar to their advancement.

There are significant disagreement between McCain and Obama when it comes to policy and on how best to defend America. (For what it is worth, on most of them I come down on McCain’s side.) But in the months ahead we should try not to lose track of the fact that this is campaign is between two good men who, in distinct ways, represent the promise and decency of America.

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Trafalgar

May 21st, 2008 1:23pm

And good to see the failure of negative campaigning for once: the original frontrunners - Romney and Clinton both ran very negative campaigns and both paid the price. Let's hope Rove stays away.

Ian C

May 21st, 2008 2:13pm

I have just listened/watched that speech and found it genuinely 'I've heard it all before'. Maybe it is because I have - not from him - but from politicians over the years, and it is the same as so many US Presidential candidates. One could just count the spending promises. And then he says he's going to change the very system he needs to deliver those promises.
He was clever to go back to Iowa. But his target audience is clearly the under 30's - those who have not heard it all before.
They say he's charismatic, but we should remember how the last charisamtic Democratic president ended up. He is going to find it tough to say anything new by 1st September and will have bored many.
Say that I have been around a while, in my fifties, but if this is his sumary of what he wants to offer it is very beatable. McCain, however, needs to add passion to his position to counter the charisma and abilty to speechify.

murray

May 21st, 2008 5:45pm

I agree. His rhetoric is excellent. But "where is the beef?" There is NOTHING in his legislative record that demontrates courageous leadership to back it up (vs. McCain who has bucked the tide often his whole career).

TGF UKIP

May 23rd, 2008 10:13pm

I am in agreement with Ian C on Obama and so far as the "good" man and "decency" aspect is concerned I would strongly counsel against gushing too much.

Obama's Chicago past is distinctly murky and I believe the reason that there has so far been no Clinton concession is that they are onto something but need more time to stand it up.

There is a little too much of the Elmer Gantry about Obama.