This clarifies a lot of the thoughts that have been swirling round for a while.
I started out pretty sceptical about Obama. He seemed more trustworthy than Clinton but even more moderate, and not in a good way. After a while I came to support him, but mostly on the basis that there was a chance he'd seek genuine change. I didn't think it was all that likely, but there was no way in hell Hilary would.
Slowly however he's got to me. First in Iowa, then Philadelphia and then with the graduation speech filling in for Teddy Kennedy. Was it possible that this man was actually the Real Thing? Could such a thing exist in American politics?
Now I know why. As the article says "His naïve-sounding calls for change are persuasive largely because he’s already managed to improve one of our most intractable political problems: the decades-old, increasingly virulent plague of terrible speechifying."
It's important not to be swept away. We've seen some pretty terrible politicians who could give great speeches. But as the article argues, speechifying style isn't "merely a sauce on the nutritious bread of substance", it can tell us much. The fact that Obama's style is to speak to us as though we are intelligent, at the same time as raising our spirits with soaring rhetoric, tells us that he actually wants to address at least one of the World's most challenging problems.
He may fail, but by God it's nice to have someone who's trying.
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2 comments:
You know, when the primary candidate field first started to clarify, I looked at Obama and thought "too good to be true, it'll never last." I also thought a number of other things like "The US is not going elect a black guy" and "start the count down to getting shot" but more than anything, I thought he was just too good to be true.
Between then and the last primary, I ignored a lot of what was going on, on the basis that "Any Democrat will do." My preferences seemed inconsequential against the overwhelming need to get the Republicans out of the White House before the blow up the middle east, take away everyone's civil liberties in the name of combating terrorism, chain women to childbirth, and light the planet on fire.
Now that the field has narrowed and holy moly, Obama is the guy, I'm beyond delighted. He's my dream candidate. He's Jed Bartlett and I swear to God, his speeches are being written by Aaron Sorken.
Great to hear from you Bri - and you win the prize for my first genuine comment.
I'm not yet ready to say that Obama *is* Jed Bartlett, but in the last few weeks its occurred to me that he actually might be. And his speeches certainly are being written by Sorken.
BTW, a friend and I are kicking around some ideas for ways to get expats to the polls. Ideally it would be a sort of reciprocal effect - boost turnout of Americans living in Australia in a way that would then mean that come the Australian elections Aussies living in the US would be more likely to vote as well. It's still a bit half-formed but I'll probably be posting about it here, and would really welcome feedback from you.
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