The Speech

One thing is clear: after the 2008 convention, the Democratic Party is not the same. It’s not just that Barack Obama accepted the nomination of his party as the first African-American candidate of a major party and a former community organizer, and offered a new course for a country that had reached broad consensus that the current path under Republican administrations is a dead-end. It was the speech itself and the energy it generated that changed the U.S. political scene.

When Barack Obama took the stage before some 80,000 enthusiastic supporters, he delivered the speech of his campaign and the speech of a generation. Whether you agree with all his positions or not, the August 28 speech was impressive--for its political acumen, the masterly delivery and the response of the crowd.

This convention was billed as an “open convention.” This meant that instead of accepting the nomination in the Pepsi Center where entry was restricted to some 20,000 delegates, press and donors, it was taken outside to Mile-High Stadium where capacity was quadrupled to permit entry of campaign workers from throughout the state of Colorado, representatives of unions and organizations, and supporters who just wanted to be a part of it all.
Like any good organizer, Obama did not stand up to say ‘I will lead this nation into a new era.’ He stood up to say we will change this country.

“Across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me--it’s about you.”

The Obama team underlined the collective nature of the challenge by presenting short speeches by average citizens carefully selected to make a plea to critical sectors of the population, coordinating on the spot over 30,000 text messages in support of the candidate from the stadium and viewers, and announcing the launch of a massive voter registration drive.
Before the speech, analysts speculated on the content. Would it seek to assuage the doubts of independent voters about his abilities or consolidate the support of democratic stalwarts? Would it be lofty rhetoric or detailed policy positions? Would it be the firebrand or the family man?

Surprisingly, it was all of the above.

Much of the personal part of making the candidate someone millions could identify with was left to the short video before his appearance. The carefully crafted message was that although he wasn’t typical (race being, as usual, an implicit sub-text) his was a uniquely American story—that with hard work, commitment, family support and a vision anyone can make it.
Obama touched briefly on the personal then launched into a hard-hitting attack on John McCain and the Bush administration for abandoning the poor and middle class. The ground had been prepared by the many “ordinary people” speeches, many of them extraordinarily effective (Barney Smith, a displaced factory worker, got the line of the night with “We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney”)

There was no reaching across the aisle here—in fact, if anything Obama widened the aisle by emphasizing that McCain had voted with Bush 90% of the time, plans a continuation of failed economic policies and in foreign policy “has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans, democrats and republicans, have built…” Instead, many of the speeches of the night were from former Republicans crossing over.

The attacks on McCain were tough. Saying “John McCain doesn’t get it”, Obama ripped into the Republican candidate, citing his gaffes regarding the number of houses he owns and similar statements to show a man out of touch with middle class America.
In foreign policy, he called for withdrawal from Iraq, direct diplomacy in Iran, new partnerships, and restoring the U.S. government’s moral standing. Some of the ideas are vague but they’re big ideas, in the context of the smallness of mind that characterizes current foreign policy.

I’ve been criticized by progressives since writing about my guarded optimism on Obama’s Latin America policy (pretty much absent during the convention except for a commitment to pay more attention to the region in Spanish from Bill Richardson). Most comments note the areas where Obama diverges from the positions many of us hold, especially on security policy, and accuse me of a lack of realism.

But after this speech, I’m more convinced than ever that we have something to work with here. It’s even a little beyond the lesser of two evils. Obama’s discourse and organizing style—very successfully reflected in the convention—has brought up issues in the mainstream that many of us thought lost during the long years of imprisonment in the Washington Consensus and War on Terrorism: trickle-down as a “discredited philosophy”, the relationship between globalization and workers’ rights, the disaster of the Iraq invasion, corporate excesses.

The new consensus being forged on these issues is largely the result of years of work by citizen organizations and the evident failure of the Bush administration. But they are messages taken on eloquently by the candidate and echoed, finally, in the mainstream media as a result.

The Democratic Party changed perceptibly Thursday night. The party leadership was outflanked from above and below. From above, by a candidate who has certainly not broken with party positions but who has pushed further than most on issues of trade and displacement, corporate power and influence, and social programs for the poor. From below, by a base that has been mobilized to take the initiative in this campaign—through fresh faces in the ranks, grassroots funding, community organizers on the ground where traditionally party officials ran the show, and a level of involvement both physical and emotional that was evident in Denver last week.

We can’t know what policies will actually come out of it. But the second major impact of Barack Obama’s candidacy is the re-enfranchisement of important segments of the U.S. population, especially groups that had been excluded or ignored. This “something is stirring in America” may sound a little corny but even hardened political announcers found the energy in Mile-High Stadium after the speech contagious, and the thousands of campaign workers will go home with more than souvenirs.

If you believe that a new foreign policy must be built from the bottom up, like all change, that can only be a good sign.