I could go on and on about all the ways in which Barack Obama just blew all expectations out of the water, but as usual, Andrew Sullivan says it better:
It was a deeply substantive speech, full of policy detail, full of people other than the candidate, centered overwhelmingly on domestic economic anxiety. It was a liberal speech, more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism. But it made the case for that liberalism - in the context of the decline of the American dream, and the rise of cynicism and the collapse of cultural unity. His ability to portray that liberalism as a patriotic, unifying, ennobling tradition makes him the most lethal and remarkable Democratic figure since John F Kennedy.
What he didn’t do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again … and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.
He took every assault on him and turned them around. He showed not just that he understood the experience of many middle class Americans, but that he understood how the Republicans have succeeded in smearing him. And he didn’t shrink from the personal charges; he rebutted them. Whoever else this was, it was not Adlai Stevenson. It was not Jimmy Carter. And it was less afraid and less calculating than Bill Clinton.
Above all, he took on national security - face on, full-throttle, enraged, as we should all be, at how disastrously American power has been handled these past eight years. He owned this issue in a way that no Democrat has owned it since Kennedy. That’s a transformative event. To my mind, it is vital that both parties get to own the war on Jihadist terror and that we escape this awful Rove-Morris trap that poisons the discourse into narrow and petty partisan abuse of patriotism. Obama did this tonight. We are in his debt.
Look: I’m biased at this point. I’m one of those people, deeply distressed at what has happened to America, deeply ashamed of my own misjudgments, who has shifted out of my ideological comfort zone because this man seems different to me, and this moment in history seems different to me. I’m not sure we have many more chances to get off the addiction to foreign oil, to prevent a calamitous terrorist attack, to restore constitutional balance in the hurricane of a terror war.
I’ve said it before - months and months ago. I should say it again tonight. This is a remarkable man at a vital moment. America would be crazy to throw this opportunity away. America must not throw this opportunity away.
Know hope.
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The AP disagrees - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92RMQE80&show_article=1
There was no substance. It was purely highfalutin slogans and mantras, as usual. Look, I know he’s an environmentalist, and I’m all for recycling, but he doesn’t have to recycle his speeches.
Obama empowered me as an American….
Sean2,
That’s the same piece that Olberman grilled on air for being so absolutely out of touch he suggested that Mr. Babington “find a new job.”
Granted Keith is obviously a little slanted… but that doesn’t make his assessment of the AP piece any less true.
That piece you referenced is gonna be the piece that conservatives like yourselves point out…
I like how your actually trying to suggest that the opinion of this one guy speaks for the people of America, that this one exception would actually trump the voices and actions of the hundreds of thousands of people who have showed up in support of Barack Obama at one of his events.
Are you seriously going to argue against the likes of a conservative giant by the name of Pat Buchanan when even he gave his unapologetic approval of this speech?
This is a speech for the history books pal… get used to it.
THAT SPEECH WAS EXCELLENT!
It looked like an event that should not have been missed.
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Ignominious trolls cannot detract from a great evening of speeches!
That’s all the mention the local troll deserves.
Fantastic!
Sean2: Babbington turned in that article BEFORE the speech was done. That means he heard the speech, gave it due consideration, went through the editing process, and published it all BEFORE the speech was complete.
Yup. That AP report is meaningful. BTW, Babington got the speech length wrong by a full seven minutes.
Thanks for playing, sport.
VIRUS ALERT.
Trying to go to that link - Windows gave all sorts of bells & whistle alarms.
I’m glad Obama got into some policy details. He needed to.
For me, a moderate Republican, it confirms that his policy direction contains many elements that I believe are the wrong approach. Without a speech like he gave last night, I would still be fuzzy, having a gut feel that I didn’t agree with him but unsure, and wow’ed by the rhetoric.
The best point of the speech was him talking about how Government can’t do it all, and fathers need to step up. That was a good message. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that his platform is too liberal for me and others like me.
Obama absolutely smoked it in that speech.
Obama is correct on the positions, Obama has the vision. Obama has the intelligence we need after 8 years of the Babbling Bush.
Obama has the judgment McCain could not gain, or has foresaken.
The first guy since Kennedy that you can really throw support behind without tons of caveats.
Anyone with the attention span above a newt probably could decide on the basis of that speech alone, that THIS is the guy
we need in the white house! Certainly tenfold over the other “choice.”
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What repetitious “but I was a prisoner of war” answers do we get next week during the Republican Convention?
How many houses do you own? Why couldn’t you give an answer?
“Did I tell you I was a prisoner of war?”
OBAMA has been into the policy detail for people who paid attention. It hasn’t been obscured or flopped on.
Its been out there. So you shouldn’t really blame your own inattention on him.
Dan. What in the world does McCain offer you?:
4 more years of the same past 8?
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Are you THAT happy with your world right now? How’s your lifestyle?
Will you be employed tomorrow, if you get McCain?
Will you have the same standard health care? Right now, I’m seeing my health care cut.
Will the economy be humming along suddenly because of McCain? Magically?
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Surely you can’t be that afraid of change for the better? Because staying the same, merely shrinks your world & squeezes it down.
Presidents have little short-term impact on economies. You could really argue that the 90’s economic expansion was due to Reagan policies, and you could also argue that Clinton’s loosened lending standards are causing many of today’s problems.
Healthcare needs to be fixed. The biggest misconeption in this campaign is that Democrats offer more change in healthcare. They simply change the financing mechanism, but change little else about the system. With a patient-centered revolution, the Republican healthcare plan would have more positive far-reaching effects.
Here is why I want John McCain: I want Government to quietly nudge our society in the right direction, much like a parent encouraging their kid ride a bike for the first time. I dont’ want Government to be the driver of an economy and a society in and of itself. That leaves way too much power in the hands of the elected officials and not enough in the hands of ambitious and creative Americans. Using the riding a bike analogy, Democratic policy not only gets you going forward, but tells you which path you must take, has many idle people standing along the path to make sure you don’t fall, and stops you when you’ve gone far enough as define by them, not you.
Hey! Anyone that wants to live in am imperialist oligarchy can move to Russia.
Enjoy the cavier and vodka!
Aloha Dan and Sean2!
The American Dream has come home for us Americans.
Any doubt amongst Hillary Clinton’s supporters have been cleared up. Any doubts ampngst the vast demograhic plain of voters in this country that they are not sure that Barack Obama was ready to lead, have been cleared up.
Obama took this speech to frontiers not recently explored. He hit the Republicans so hard in the Solar Plexus, that Pat Buchannan was rendered spechless. I do not know how the GOP is going to be able to top this in their so-called message of change.
For the message of the last 8 years is the same. The only change is the face of the man with that message.
We have seen the Republican vision of less government… spying on American citizens without a court order like we were criminals instead of citizens. Lying us into a war while hiding the truth from us like we are children. We have seen the Republican vision of economic policy… giving tax breaks to corporations that move American jobs overseas. Raising taxes on the working people while cutting taxes for Pari Hilton. We have seen the Republican vision of foreign policy… insulting our allies and substituting saber rattling for diplomacy. Turning a world of friends into a sea of resentment. We have seen the Republican vision of government… Katrina where an American city was allowed to be destroyed by the American government. Republicans profess to love America but their actions seem to harm Americans.
No thanks… I expect something from my government, I expect to be helped, not abandoned. I expect to be helped, not hurt. Republicans stand for trying to recreate a past that never existed, Democrats stand for all Americans moving into the future together.
Save you complaints for President Obama’s second term.
Dick Morris nailed it over at Rasmussen.com. He said that in 1992, the GOP made the fatal mistake of campaigning against Hillary, not Bill. They won a campaign but against the wrong person so they lost.
This year, the Dems are campaigning against Bush, not McCain. They are winning their campaign aginst Bush. Problem is, they don’t need to beat Bush.
McCain shows the country how he would govern in a way different than Bush, even moderately different, and all this anti-Bush campaign becomes a hollow echo.
As for this 90-95% voting with Bush matra that people keeping repeating even if they don’t know what it means, that includes every procedural vote in the Senate, many of which were unanimous. Yes, Obama, Clinton, Biden, and McCain would all vote together, with the other 95 Senators.
When you weed out the votes that really matter, the ones that are not unanimous and will actually determine the future of our country. there is a notable and defineable difference between Senator McCain and the lame duck who is currently President.
I meant to write 90-95 of voting with Bush mantra..
Dan would you know like to tell us what you were saying in 2000 and 2004 about George Bush. Only for the sake of the truth now. Failed Republican policy can’t be saved by any minor tweaking. Certainly you former Bush supporters will not be watching a Republican convention that has both Cheney and Bush speaking as abandoning the Bush years… I mean pull the other one. John McCain is no different than Bush/Cheney… to say this you need to show actual policy differences. None shown in any speech by John, he needs to repudiate Bush/Cheney and he will not do it.
John McCain needs to reject 8 years of Republican leadership in the harshest terms to make your statement anything but a cruel joke. He won’t and in fact can not because those are his ideas too.
amuseinc!!
You just repeated what I said reagrding McCain and his message for America. Thank you!!
lojasmo - the transcript of the speech was available long before Obama delivered it. Even people like myself read the speech long in advance of the delivery. The speech was of by 9 minutes (or 7 as Keith tells you) because he based it on the prepared time length, whereas the applause extended the speech.
Policy specifics, such as social security? how he intends to pay for his healthcare? his energy? No, there were no specifics.
“You could really argue that the 90’s economic expansion was due to Reagan policies, and you could also argue that Clinton’s loosened lending standards are causing many of today’s problems.”
Yeah, you could argue that if you were totally dishonest. The fact is that the economy performs much better under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents. And the main difference is this: Democrats govern by applying ideas that work, even if the ideas aren’t in line with party orthodoxy (i.e. Bill Clinton). Republicans, on the other hand (or at least Bush) apply their ideology and don’t care about the results. I expect that if Obama wins, the economy will turn around pretty quickly. I expect that DantheMan will attribute this to Bush policies.
I’ve long said that Bush didn’t deliver on what we voted for in 2000. I would say there are two major failures and one that was executed poorly:
1) Failure - fiscal management. Bush went in the OPPOSITE direction of your tpyical conservative when talking about deficit spending and managing the federal budget and government waste
2) Failure - Medicare Part D - to establish this entitlement program without having a way to pay for it was against the grain of the conservative philosophy
3) Poor execution - Bush would have been well-served to follow McCain’s advice in the Iraq invasion. McCain was disagreeing with Bush’s approach before the invasion even happened
And DanTheMan, you may remember as McCain was being critical of Bush’s handling on the war in 2004, it was Obama (talking about the war) who said:
“There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.”
Obama was amazing. McCain/Bush are going down in flames from a fire they started. It has to happen. The Bush administration has carried out the Reaganomics and Conservative agenda to a T over the last 8 years. To a T. They had 6 years of majority rule, instated their philosophies into every aspect of their government, even our formerly hallowed justice system!. Now they aren’t “true” conservatives? What, because it was a total and absolute failure? Face it, by “conservative” standards, they governed like a well oiled machine. And 2008 is a direct result of the conservative agenda. We have lived the conservative agenda since Bush came into office. This is it. And it is a total failure.
I think the reality is that the word Conservative has come to mean the opposite of what it meant Pre-Reagan. People who disagree with the way their honorable president violated the constitution and drove our country into the ground, turned Americans against each other, tore apart our strong economy, illegally spied on you and me, blundered a disastrous war that never should have happened, yet still hold onto their failed party and agenda, and cling to their candidates while talking about “real conservatives” are having a hard time dealing with that definition change. But I will take a Clinton/Obama style big government over a Reagan/BushCheney/McCain style small government and day. And I think that a vast majority of Americans realize that it is in their best interest.
“And I think that a vast majority of Americans realize that it is in their best interest.”
More specifically, 48% of of Americans as of this morning. Obama got a 5 point bounce from the DNC, something I would have expected to be higher given the (admittedly) successful lineup of primetime speakers.
Americans are suffering too much. Losing their jobs, health care prices increasing, high gas prices, smaller paychecks, less funding for education, and the list goes on…. When one has faith in America and then loses that faith, either republican or democrat, you lose trust in the party that is bring those conditions on you and your family. Unfortunately, for the republicans, Bush has done this and at this point there is no chance that any republican could win. Americans are suffering too much.
McFailure picked Sarah Palin. Ha. Ha. Maybe she’ll get indicted before the election. What a moron.
DantheMan, I agree 100%,
It is troubling for these Liberals that the polling of people with landline telephones only gives Obama a 5 point bounce.
Obviously the Democrats are in trouble. I would continue to stalk and obsessively comment on MN Publius at a frequency that is way way beyond that of anyone who disagrees with you, because then we Minnesota Republican bloggers win.
I am glad that you comment here so frequently morning, afternoon, evening, and night. You must have a very very strong case of the vapors, because obviously you have dedicated an enormous amount of time to taking moonbats down. I have no doubt that these people you disagree with now know what a Minnesota Republican blogger stands for.
I especially hope you help us Minnesota Republican bloggers continue to make our argument that Barak Obamas inexperience makes him a poor choice to lead the free world.
Great Job Minnesota Republican blogger DantheMan!!
sorry, tfrwg. I thought this was a discussion forum — a so-called “big tent”.
I’ll go away.
DantheMan, the less then expectations bounce is a talking point the Republicans have been spouting all week. You don’t get any points for repeating it yourself.
Wow! What a great speech! I am even more excited about the next 4 years under Obama leadership. I see the normal trolls on here can’t see anything past their own talking points. I suppose that is fine, that is the “game” to some extent: denial and disinformation. But really at the end of the day, any normal person (non-hack) who took pause to hear what Obama had to say is going to come away with a feeling that this guy is alright, this guy knows what he’s talking about, and this guy may actually do something to improve the lives of me and my family and take America in a new direction at the same time. Well done.
Sarah Palin. That is awesome news!
So Sarah Palin a few years ago, fewer than Obama was in the Senate I think, was the mayor of an Alaskan town of 7,000 citizens. And she has been Governor of Alaska for 2 years… to be Vice President of a man who has at present outlived both his father and grandfather… risky is too tame a word for a vote for the McCain/Palin ticket.
And please Republicans tell me again about how important experience is to the Presidency?
By the way, Palin is anti-condom use and a creationist… what a sad package this is…
I think it’s entirely fitting that republiCon Crook Sarah Palin will speak Wednesday night, republiCon Crook Jack Abramoff will testify Thursday afternoon, and republiCon Crook (and Serial Adulterer) John McCan’t will speak Thursday night.
Breaking news. Obama realizes his gaffe and disses Biden for Hillary. He could actually be a Democrat candidate to lose the women vote.
DtM: So, you’re just finding out about Obama’s policies? Who reads the posts to you when you respond on this blog? Obama’s policies have been up in print for months, if not over a year.
Sean2: No credible person is worried about Obama losing the women vote.
Sean2, you do realize that this woman believes that condoms are bad because they halt procreation? She is a creationist… sort of anti-science. The woman is anti-choice to the extreme. All in all she is on the wrong side of most polling of American women’s’ viewpoints.
Just being a woman will get the vote of only the most extreme women voters… most are very smart about voting on the issues.
Nominating a total nutbag like Palin is going to cost McCain votes among women.
Honestly, I never dreamed that McCain would make such a bad pick. Not only is she Michell-Bachman crazy, but she is thoroughy corrupt like all the other Alaska Republicans.
The GOP aren’t trying to win this election. Mittens wouldn’t have taken the VP spot because he doesn’t want the McCain stain on him. Watch out for Mitt and his magic underwear in 2012
amuseinc - polls show women mostly care about the economy and the war, and that only 3% of woman name choice as their top priority
Yea,
Baracks Speech was great democratic red meat. Im sure he spoke to the hearts and minds of hillarys people. By the way did anyone hear Chris matthews of msnbc? He basically endorsed barack obama on air. Whats up w that? Anyone who thinks NBC is unbiased is smoking large amounts of crack. Read that in the http://fargpophantom.com
Lets see what the Goverment Channel has to say at FOX News tonight. Looks like a successful Speech and will prove to be a strong force of change.
Your Loving Neighbor in North Dakota
Dan the man
Don’t let them chase you away. Stick around and explain and defend your views. There are so few blogs with any respectful dialogue. Is your life really so secure in terms of job security, healthcare, retirement, college tuition etc that you see no need to change course? Ever consider how $10 billion a month could be invested here at home?
Your first comment gives away that something in Obama’s rhetoric speaks to you. If your not ready to join us in support of Obama’s policy proposals, at least stay engaged because he will be your president too. I may be a sap but I sort of buy into the post partisan vision (more for regular people than Rove/Delay style politicians.)
Sean2:
“amuseinc - polls show women mostly care about the economy and the war, and that only 3% of woman name choice as their top priority”
Since Palin admits she knows nothing about Iraq, and left the town of which she was mayor 20 million dollars in debt, how does she help the ticket with women?