Obama starts to get concrete
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.