It's Not Just Rhetoric (But It Sure Does Help)

I just got finished watching Barack Obama’s victory speech after South Carolina for the third or fourth time and still have goosebumps. The little hairs are sticking up on the back of my neck. This man blows me away.

The first moment I saw Obama speak at the DNC in 2004 I knew I was in for a long term love affair. No, not an affair, a committed relationship. Not a relationship with the handsome man himself (Michelle and his girls kind of stand in the way of that), but with his energy, with his politics, with his hope. Ever since that moment, where the guy introducing the presidential nominee stole the show from the candidate himself, I have been telling any and everyone about this young man who speaks like MLK Jr. and has an air of leadership like JFK (too bad he doesn’t have three cool initials to go by because that would be a pretty prophetic trend). He is a man I know can get things done. His speech in South Carolina just furthered my resolve about this candidate and reenergized me with the optimism he filled me with four short years ago.
Yet there is still a lot he is up against. Words can mobilize a nation, but he’s the underdog in the eyes of most of Americans.

I am realistic. First off, as Bill Clinton has reminded everyone lately Obama is (gasp) a black man. I know he has to topple the Clinton establishment before he can even worry about toppling the Washington establishment. I also know that he faces the often un-verbalized but ingrained racism that persists in America. I have considered all this but still think he has a shot at the nomination. He’s kind of like the Patriots. He’s had an historical season but still needs to win the Super Bowl. If we are sticking to the football analogy, he has a good chance (maybe Clinton will get the political flu like half the Giants team got the real flu).

And with race starting to leave the campaign rhetoric again (thankfully). We have another kind of rhetoric to worry about. The rhetoric that put Obama on the national scene in the first place: his own. Hillary seems to be attempting to sell Americans on the idea that because someone has a way with words that they probably won’t be able to back it up. On multiple occasions I have heard her say something like, “Yea he talks a good game, but can he bring it like I did when I was in the White House?”

Well, just because you haven’t had the “experience” of being in the immediacy of a president for 8 years doesn’t mean you don’t have the goods. And moreover, just because you talk like an angel sent from heaven (sorry, was that analogy a little over the top?) does not mean you don't have the ideas and wherewithal to get things done. Howard Kurtz astutely pointed out, in a Washington Post article, after hearing one of Obama’s speeches it would have been easy to get caught up in his delivery. “But the address was saturated with proposals. Obama called for tax rebates; a one-time boost in Social Security checks; extending unemployment insurance; mortgage aid for those facing foreclosure; raising the minimum wage; protecting pensions; and college tuition credits. And that was before he got to his support for solar and wind power and biodiesel fuel,” Kurtz remembered.

So next time Barack Obama makes you starry eyed at a speech, whether you’re a supporter or not, don’t forget to listen to what he will do for this country. He will undoubtedly continue to make us weak at the knees with his speeches, but for those of us that so hungrily crave the change he speaks of, he will likely bring us to our knees with the goods he will deliver if given the opportunity.