By Carter Bundy
It was obviously a big moment. Everyone knew there’d be a big crowd. Everyone expected a big delivery. But throughout Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, all I could think about was how much larger than the average presidential nominee he is.
The guy’s got a really big brain. His command of issue after issue is apparent, even in a scripted speech. His ability to frame issues and focus on solutions is outstanding. After the last eight years, I love the idea that we have the opportunity to elect someone who is smart. John McCain, for all his wonderful service to
Barack has a big heart. In the video preceding his acceptance speech, he referenced the one thing that would anger his mother: cruelty to others. How many other politicians talk about things like bullying and putting yourself in the shoes of others?
The man’s core principle is the Golden Rule, and that shone through Thursday night. I’m not a big religion-on-sleeve guy, but Obama set out the very best principles of Christianity as a guiding light for the entire country. There’s a reason that he’s going to get more evangelical votes than any Dem since Jimmy Carter, and I’m not only comfortable with that reason, I love it.
Obama has big vision. He talked not just about specific policies, but about finding common purpose. About
He reprised his 2004 vision of an
Standing witness
I’ve never seen anything like the last few minutes of the speech. Barack mentioned that it was the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The crowd stood for another ovation.
Unlike the previous standing ovations, though, no one sat down. It was something that deserved our total attention, silence and respect. From that moment, no one I could see in the stadium sat down until the speech was over.
It was only a few minutes, but none of us knew that at the time. There was a sense that we were all witnessing something special, something unique in politics, something important, something big.
Fearless
I first realized how fearless Barack Obama is when he gave his speech on religion and race in
Thursday night, that same fearless Barack was on display. He welcomed the debate on judgment and temperament to be commander-in-chief. He tackled taxes head on. Obama’s faced months of assertions from McCain himself and from the Club for Growth and national and state Republican flaks that Barack will raise “your” taxes. In what was probably the only deviation from his speech, he paused when he started talking about his economic plan, prefacing his true position with “Listen now.” I’m going to offer tax cuts — tax cuts — to 95 percent of working families.
Obama even took on the four big social issues: abortion, guns, gays and immigration. He didn’t shy away from his position, but he pushed us all toward the common-sense common ground that most politicians are afraid to address.
Whether McCain has the character to honestly critique Obama’s foreign, tax and social policies is something that only McCain can decide. So far it’s been cheap shots and sloganeering from that camp. Maybe McCain will rise up, maybe he won’t, but either way, Obama showed he has big enough character to engage in fearless, honest policy debate.
Firsts
Much has been made about Barack Obama being the first African-American nominee, or the first bi-racial nominee, or the first post-boomer-generation candidate, and those are important and interesting storylines.
I came away from Thursday night realizing he’s breaking ground in another way. He’s shown that you can run a high-ground campaign, in primaries and in the general election, and that you can focus on issues, problems and solutions, and be competitive, maybe even win it all.
Those of us who do political or policy work for reasons of conviction don’t have many role models. There are many politicians who deliver good things for either liberal or conservative causes, but a smaller number who do so without engaging in vindictive or nasty politics.
Thursday night Obama was consistently generous not only in his assessment of McCain’s service to country, he was gracious with respect to McCain’s motives for his policy choices. It’s not that McCain doesn’t care, it’s that he doesn’t get it. Lots of other politicians would have succumbed to the temptation to throw red meat to the Dems and the anti-Bush viewing audience and questioned McCain’s caring. Not Barack.
After the debate, one friend said Obama was our generation’s Bobby Kennedy because of his intellectual firepower and concern for people. Another claimed he was more like JFK, because of his ability to inspire and unite people. I didn’t chime in because I couldn’t figure out which was a more compelling argument. Later I realized why: because they were both right.
We’re seeing a real first, at least for the 50-and-under crowd: a candidate who is intellectually powerful and honest, cares unashamedly about making our country and the world a better place, is fearless, and can inspire and unite people. That, to me, is as important a first as there can be.
The right person
I worked my tail off in 2002 and 2006 to support Gov. Richardson. I worked my heart out for more than seven months to help Hillary. Either would have been an excellent president. I even still have a soft spot for John Edwards despite his personal transgressions.
But Democrats got the right person. And so did
Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in