The expectations for Obama’s speech tonight are a mile high. I’d be tempted to say they’ll be impossible to match but, as First Read points out , Obama has never yet failed to deliver on one of these set piece occasions.
Obama speaks as the first African-American nominee of a major American party on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech’, emphasising the historic nature of this moment. Add to this the fact that Obama is regarded as the best political orator in a generation and that his political career took off with his 2004 convention address, and you realise just how much people are expecting. To give you a flavour of the mood here in Denver, I passed through a party last night where people were dancing to music spliced heavily with extracts from Obama’s speeches.
If Obama had a large poll lead, the temptation for him would be to deliver a workmanlike speech designed to show that he had substance. But in the current circumstances, that’s a risk as the press might declare that the air had gone out of the Obama balloon. But equally the Republicans have ingeniously set up a situation where people will quickly ask where the detail is if Obama delivers a speech that hits the rhetorical high-notes.
The convention so far has been dominated by the Clinton drama making Obama’s speech all the more important. Obama’s task tonight is to remind people why there has been such excitement about his candidacy and to show them that his head is not in the clouds, that he is ready to lead both at home and abroad. It is hard a balancing act to pull off but one that his chances depend on him doing so.
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