A stirring speech

tauringhuang.

Aug 29th 2008 | DENVER
From Economist.com

A strong speech from Barack Obama caps the Democratic convention

AFP
REPUBLICANS had needled Barack Obama for accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in an enormous sports stadium. But their efforts to dampen the mood failed to spoil a grand party. As veteran political hands say, remember the visual. The 70,000 adoring flag-waving supporters will be seen on news bulletins again and again. Whether Mr Obama was presumptuous or not, undecided voters will see a man who can inspire like no politician in recent American history.

His speech on Thursday August 28th laid no new principles. But many Americans were tuning in for the first time. And he sharpened some of the themes he has developed over the past year. To the charge that he is elitist, a “celebrity”, he once again told the story of an immigrant father and growing up with his single mother. To the notion that he is self-obsessed, he said “this election has never been about me. It is about you.” He began to describe, to those who have heard that “change” was an empty slogan, exactly what it meant in policy. He said he would make cuts for 95% of working families, invest in alternative power like wind and solar, focus once again on Afghanistan, and more. The crowd lapped it up.

But most importantly, he attacked John McCain without ever seeming nasty. Noting that McCain had voted with George Bush 90% of the time, he said “I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a 10% chance on change.” And he declared confidently that he looks forward to tangling with Mr McCain on foreign policy: “The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans, Republicans and Democrats, have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.” He managed to be sharp in his criticism while refusing to question Mr McCain’s motives or patriotism. Returning to the theme of the 2004 speech that made him famous he got his biggest cheer of the night for saying that America’s troops “have not served a red America or a blue America – they have served the United States of America.”

The big finale capped a convention that began as a mixed bag. The first night was a soft-focus look at his wife Michelle, and a tribute to Ted Kennedy, an old lion of the party gravely ill with cancer. But little was said about Mr McCain and the election ahead. The next night, Hillary Clinton put her shoulder to Mr Obama’s wheel, finally and fully, burying the fear that the party would remain divided.

But despite her made-for-television line—“No way. No how. No McCain”—it was only the next, third night when speakers truly sought blood from Mr McCain. John Kerry belied his 2004 incarnation as a wooden presidential candidate, to give a fiery speech contrasting “Senator McCain”, often a maverick against his party, and “candidate McCain”, who has come round to toeing his party’s line on taxes, immigration and energy policy. Bill Clinton, who courted controversy again and again in the primaries for his unedited thoughts on Mr Obama, similarly fell into line with a rousing speech. And finally Joe Biden, Mr Obama’s recently chosen running mate, addressed foreign-policy experience, saying again and again, on Iraq, Afghanistan and other crucial decisions, “John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.”

With the conventions, the trench-warfare phase of the campaign begins. There are no new policies or promises, and there is little left to learn about either man. Instead the battle is now about organisation and discipline, not just of the two candidates (who can be in only one place at a time) but the phalanxes of supporters who will try to drive their message through. The Democrats made a decent go of it this week. And now it is over to the Republicans in St Paul.