There’s a lot of talk about the difference between the Obama we’re seeing on the stump now and the Obama we saw at the Democratic National Convention in Boston back in 04. People have noticed that the current Obama appears to be cooler, more deliberative, even a tad — dare I say it — boring. They harken back to the heady night in the Fleet Center when Obama brought the house down and everyone in the country knew who he was for the first time and wanted more.
Bring back the Old Obama, some say. Give us more of that excitement. Give us more of that audacity of hope!
So I went back to the speech Obama gave that night to see what was really going on. And the news is that are not two Obamas, but only one. If you read the speech carefully, it is more evenhanded and deliberative than most of us may recall.
Senator Obama begins his speech by recounting his story, and it is an irresistible one. From the humble beginnings in Kenya to the American Dream, with just the right dose of self-deprecation along the way — the story has us from the goats and the tin shack:
Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father — my grandfather — was a cook. . . . But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America.
Obama’s next move is to the rule of law — and the ‘genius’ of America:
That is the true genius of America, . . . a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are . . . safe from harm; that we can say what we think . . . without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted.
He then goes on to talk about the threats to that American dream in the form of offshoring jobs and rising health care costs. But he immediately qualifies that traditional Democratic rhetoric with the following:
Now, don’t get me wrong. The people I meet — in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks — they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead, and they want to.
And that is the essential rhythm of the speech — a touch of Democratic rhetoric followed by a cautious delineation of the limits of that rhetoric.
We may remember the joy and the audacity of hope, because the emotional journey Obama took us on that night was a wonderful one, but his logic is that of the mediator, the legislator, the politician seeking to bring people together, not divide them. There are not two Obamas. There is only one, and we are getting to know him for real now in this long campaign.
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