I'm sold; I'm voting for Obama, and I'm doing it because of a speech. Lately I've heard some complaints that Barack might be a bit of an empty suit other than his ability to give speeches. While you can argue on either side of that, I'm going to make a different suggestion: Maybe it doesn't matter. I think what Barack has is what we need, and I'd like to explain why.
On February 7 Barack Obama came into the political minefield that is post-Katrina New Orleans, and gave one of the finest political speeches I have ever heard. It probably means more to me as a native New Orleanian than it will to most; but it showed me something I had despaired of ever seeing in my lifetime.
I could spend an hour going over that eight minute speech line by line, explaining why every line is pitch-perfect, but I'll limit myself to one line to show my point:
"It's a city where slaves met in Congo Square to raise their voices in improbable joy, and a young man named Louis from back of town played the first tunes. It's a city where Jackson turned back the British, and a great port connected America's heartland to the Gulf. It's a city where races, and religions, and languages got all mixed up, and all together formed something entirely new. Something different, and something special. An imperfect place made more perfect through its promise for forgiveness."
I would normally advise that walking into a room full of New Orleanians and starting off by reminding us of our heritage of slavery would be political suicide. But by the end of the next sentence he manages reminds us of our geography, our musical legacy, our military and economic importance. By the time he says "all mixed up" the audience is ready to laugh. Then he gives us new and special, hits us with imperfect, then pats us on the back with promise and forgiveness. And this audience of people who came back after Katrina is eating it all up.
This speech is filled with specific local images, from Congo Square to the Jackson Avenue streetcar to a mutual celebration of our local royal family, the Mannings, that he pulls off without pretending to be a faux Saints fan. Now I'm sure Barack has people who help him with stuff like this, but it's one thing to memorize a bunch of local landmarks; it's quite another to walk into a room full of natives, start your speech with one of the most racially and socially charged topics possible, and pull it off.
Now I can hear the critics asking if this matters; after all, promises can be empty, as Barack reminds us so starkly when he mentions George W.'s post-Katrina speech in Jackson Square. But if you listen closely, Barack isn't making a lot of promises; he's actually telling us that we need to do it ourselves. And that we can do it ourselves. And he's making some of the most tired and cynical people in the country believe him.
Does that have a usefulness beyond empty rhetoric? Is that room just full of starry-eyed cultists who have been fooled? Let me remind you of some similar cult figures from the past. You'll probably be familiar with what they said.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
The guy who said that inherited a situation much worse than the one Bush is handing off to his successor. That guy screwed it up so badly he only got elected four times.
"...we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets..."
The guy who said that was facing a continent already conquered by actual Nazis, but someone forgot to tell him their victory was inevitable.
"First they ignore us, then they ridicule us, then we win."
That guy thought you could achieve victory without violence. Guess history taught him a lesson, huh?
"We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Some of that guy's cultists went and desecrated the Moon with human footprints.
"I have a dream."
I don't have to tell you who any of these people are because we remember them for their words. What they have in common is that none of them could provide what they promised on their own; they roused people who were downtrodden and in despair to get up, roll up their sleeves, and do hard things that were necessary to change their situation. And it was the power of speech that roused them. It was belief, not in the power of leaders, but in their own power.
For most of my life our leaders have been doing the opposite, trying to remind us of our powerlessness. Get out of line and the Man will come and crush you. Dissent in the streets is punished with mass arrest. It's OK for the cops to bash in your door, throw you to the ground, handcuff you, and THEN explain what they're there for. Freedom is inconvenient and dangerous. Here, have some Kool-Aid.
Barack is saying that, despite all of this, we have the power to turn it around. And the has the gift of making people believe it. That is power. It is what the Greeks called logos, the power of words to create reality. That is what can make it actually turn around. In our current dark hour, it might be the only thing that can turn our nation around.
I do not know whether Barack will use his power well; I do know that he came to my hometown and learned what he needed to know to sell us on his message. I don't know whether he'll hold to his promises on this or that plank of my personal agenda. I don't know how well he'll navigate the minefield of international diplomacy and economic catastrophe that contronts him. All I know is that he has a great power, a power I've rarely seen in my lifetime, and it is that power that has finally convinced me to go one one more date with that old whore Hope.