Dateline: Somewhere in the Air between Denver International Airport and LaGuardia–8/29/08 Early Afternoon
Did anyone expect a speech anything less than electrifying? The build up, the hype, the expectations should have made the actual bill of goods somewhat anticlimactic, but it was not.
Sat, as I was at Invesco, in the section reserved for the “written press” located in the better area of the bleachers (Rock was on the floor rocking the vote with the true believers and the party hacks), my cynical remarks about much of the proceedings were greeted with little ill will; for sure, my neighbors and I were erotically attracted to the Man from Honolulu, but we intended to go home with our panties on. Yet by evening’s end, not only was seduction achieved, but in the morning we still had no regrets. He even sent me a text message! God, there were fireworks, even before they set off the pyrotechnics.
Of course, he made the case, and made it well, but there was more; the bill of fare included a full menu from the Obama Family Smorgasbord, designed to satisfy every elements of the American pallet –raw meat for the faithful, roughage for the policy wonks, high fiber for the old folks, comfort food for the uncommitted, liquid schmaltz for the sentimental (I almost though I was at Sammy’s Roumanian), something sweet for the kids, a chill pill for social conservatives, and some communion wafers for the devout, all washed down with a beer and a shot for the working man and a nice dry Chablis for the intellectuals. At the end of the meal, I was totally full, but like Milton Berle, he still left me wanting more.
If this keeps up, I might change my blogging handle to Scarlet O’Hara, because with God as my witness, I’ll never go hungry again.
And not only did everyone find something to their liking in the grocery bag, with all their dietary concerns addressed (including a little kosher knibble for those concerned about Israel), but more remarkably, Obama took the laundry lists and made then sound poetic, as if Orson Welles were reading the phone book. I don’t know if it reads that way (and I’m not sure that it matters); the speech set out to accomplish various tasks, completed its work and then left its audience feeling as if they’d been delivered to a higher spiritual plain.
I don’t demand much from a Democrat Presidential Candidate beyond that he or she refrain from unnecessarily insulting my intelligence too frequently and that s/he have a fighting shot at beating the Republican. As Rabbi Hillel said, “all the rest is commentary.”
But, despite such slight expectations, my heart has been broken way too often. So, I suppose that when I say Obama exceeded my expectations, I am not saying all that much. But he did and I am.
Since Obama is also a rather cold blooded political player, whether he believes all that he says is open to question, but the fact that the pandering was minimal, the arguments rational and based in logic, and the poetry grounded in pragmatism, tend to make me believe that he was largely speaking from the heart and almost totally speaking from, and of, his mind.
One quibble: Obama seems to believe that we are a better people than the evidence would indicate we are. Of course, the only way he can be elected is if he is correct.