Barack Obama's speech this morning was really masterful -- I had been considering his candidacy since his speech at the 2004 convention, but I had felt that he would need to do as Hillary Clinton has done -- serve a full senate term and win reelection before running for president. However, his speech today showed me that is wrong, and that in fact that path would be the wrong one for Obama.
Obama's speech showed me that not only does he have the skills and drive he'll need to run and win, he also layed out a clear plan for winning both the nomination and the general election. Obama is going to take out Clinton and be the next president of the United States.
I'd suggest before reading further, you watch his speech on his website: http://www.barackobama.com/...
Obama says "I know there's a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change."
This is a tremendously powerful message. It would be nonsense if it were spoken by a person in his second term in the senate, but as a senator for just 2 years, it's great. As the current administration limps to a conclusion, the demand for change will grow -- it certainly won't have been slaked by the changes in Congress, which has every indication of continuing on as a weak, divided branch.
More importantly, in this line, and other parts of the speech, Obama is laying out his entire line of attack. Hillary Clinton can't be the change that we need. She'll have been in Washington for 16 years by inauguration day, 2009. With this line of attack, every time Senator Clinton mentions her experience, it will be a reminder to the voters that she's been part of the problem for a tremendously long time.
But beyond showing how he'll reverse the attacks on his washington experience, he layed out an alternative vision of the kind of experience that a president needs. His first job out of college was as a community organizer for a group of Chicago churches. Having this background working for religious institutions will give him credibility with "value voters" who may disagree with him on specific issues. His work on civil rights, and as a constitutional lawyer, and as a state senator -- all add up to a life dealing with the kinds of issues that a president needs to have a handle on.
Clinton's campaign is looking more and more conservative and staid. Sure, the conventional wisdom is that the way to win the White House is to do exactly what Senator Clinton has been doing: raise a lot of money, build a crack organization of top professionals, and stake out positions on issues that have been thoroughly polled and focus grouped. What we are going to need in 2008 is someone who can come in without the baggage of a long Washington career behind him or her. I'd still give Gore a look if he were to jump in, but Obama's speech showed me he's the real deal.