Barack Obama: Appealing to the best in us

[seafan]

Appealing to the best in us





By BOB HERBERT
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

January 7, 2008

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The historians can put aside their reference material. This is new. America has never seen anything like the Barack Obama phenomenon.
I was surprised all day Thursday, before the results of the Iowa caucuses were in, by the apparent serenity of the Obama forces here in New Hampshire. The stakes were enormous, but the campaign staff members and volunteers seemed as cool as the candidate.

The students, veterans, middle-aged moms, retirees and others working steadily to make Barack Obama president seemed to accept as fact that the country is ready for profound change and that their job is to help make it happen.

.....

There is no longer any doubt that the Obama phenomenon is real. Obama's message of hope, healing and change, discounted as fanciful and naive by skeptics, drew Iowans into the frigid night air by the tens of thousands on Thursday to stand with a man who is not just running for president, but trying to build a new type of political movement.
By midnight, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd had been chased from the race; John Edwards was all but literally on his knees; and the Clintons were trying, for the umpteenth time, to figure out how to remake themselves as the comeback kids.

Shake hands with tomorrow. It's here.

Obama's victory speech was a concise oratorical gem. No candidate in either party can move an audience like he can. He characterized his stunning victory as an affirmation of "the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it."
Obama has shown, in one appearance after another, a capacity to make people feel good about their country again. His supporters want desperately to turn the page on the bitter politics and serial disasters of the past 20 years. That they have gravitated to a black candidate to carry out this task is -- to use a term I heard for the first time this week -- monumentous.

The Clintons, especially, have seemed baffled by the winds of change. They mounted a peculiar argument against Obama, acknowledging that voters wanted change but insisting that you can't achieve change by doing things differently. Sen. Hillary Clinton has had a devil of a time trying to cope with the demand for change while shouldering the legacy of an administration that defined the 1990s.

Barack Obama has none of that baggage.

.....

However this election turns out, Obama can be credited with a great achievement. He has drawn tons of people, and especially young people, into the political process. More than anyone else, he has re-energized that process and put some of the fun back into politics. And he's done it by appealing openly and consistently to the best, rather than the worst, in us.

'Yes, We Can' -- The Magic Behind Obama's Message, Alternet, January 8, 2008

[aquart]

1. Not judging by his supporters.

[NMMNG]

2. I'll say.

[indimuse]

3. agreed

:eyes:

[Blue-Jay]

6. CLASSY!

Those Obama supporters sure do suck, don't they?

[Benhurst]

4. Has everyone forgotten Aimee Semple McPherson? She made you feel real good.

[NYCGirl]

5. It's much more than making you "feel real good." It's about making people care

to participate in democracy again.

[napi21]

8. My biggest problem with Barack is that he wants to make nice with EVERYBODY!

He wants to work WITH the Pubs, negotiate WITH the insurance companies etc. I don't WNAT to work with the Pubs! After them being such AH'S for almost 10 years, I want to out number them and force them to cry in the damn corner and suffer! After the insurance companies greed has literally KILLED people, I don't want to negotiate with them. I want someone in power to TELL THEM this is the new law, now shut up and obey it or I'll put you in prison!

[GrahmMan]

9. Yeah that will work

"After them being such AH'S for almost 10 years, I want to out number them and force them to cry in the damn corner and suffer!"

Yeah because when the pendulum turns on us again they will forget all about it:wtf:

[NYCGirl]

10. He never said he wanted to "make nice," but the reality is that you have to work

with those across the aisle, etc. There's no way about it to get anything at all done that's worthwhile. But you don't have to compromise your principles to do so.

[napi21]

12. I KNOW that's the way it's supposed to work, but what makes you

think the Pubs will change their obstructionist tactics any time soon? The ONLY thing I see changing them is to force it by gaining a super majority in both houses.

[Benhurst]

14. No, it's feel-good bullshit. I donated to his campaign when he ran in Illinois,

and I've been waiting for him to show himself to be the kind of progressive we all had hoped for ever since.

Inspirational speeches are nice, but what we need are strong positions, followed by action.

Reworking the "bring-us-together" and "I'm-a-uniter, not a divider" themes of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush is not good enough, and hardly something new.

We need someone to stand up to the gangsters who have taken over this country and stripped us of our Constitutional rights. Obama's delivering airy speeches, skipping controversial votes, and voting "present" just isn't good enough.

I'm still waiting for Senator Obama to deliver on what I have always hoped was buried somewhere in the fluff of his cotton-candy rhetoric. So far, he hasn't.

[mondo joe]

15. I think that's BS. Obama lost me with the McClurkin incident and has never regained

me. That was ugly cynical politics.

[GrahmMan]

7. I agree

I am with Richardson right now, but I am thinking Obama when Bill jumps ship before he comes down my way (FL).

He really makes me feel a little errie, its like watching MLK and JFK fused in some mad scientist gene splice :)

[Imagevision]

11. I wish Obama would address the unverifiable election results scenario...?

[Bluerthanblue]

13. great article- thanks for this. I

agree.

And I plan on doing everything I can to help him become our next president.

:hi:
blu