The big crowds are back. The podium is back. The prepared remarks are back. The oratory is back. The substance is much stronger. The attacks are flyin'. Obama spoke at Veterans Memorial Park in Manchester in front of an estimated crowd of 7,000, and it is worth watching to get a sense of how the campaign has retooled the message following the GOP bounce. (Youtube link provided below).
He begins with a statement about Hurricane Ike and pivots to the 'quiet storms' that Americans face in their daily lives from job losses, economic deterioration, a breakdown of the safety net, and a weakening of the middle class. He details the struggles in eloquent prose but tilted to working class sensibilities.
"Enough is enough" is the new key line for his remarks. He makes the comparison to the prosperity of Bill Clinton's years. Lower wages, higher foreclosures, less job growth, higher health care costs.
He then ties all of these problems facing the country to the failed trickle down economics of the GOP, Bush and McCain. "Change We Need" is the new slogan on placards, and is the underlying theme for the attack on McCain.
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Obama then undertakes a frontal assault on McCain as out of touch. Phil Gramm is quoted at length (always a good applause line). He adds a new section on how all of this personally affects him, by relating to stories from his own life (he mentions having to haggle with insurance companies when his mother was suffering from cancer). Obama's attack is relentless and goes after McCain on taxes, energy, education, health care and Iraq. However, he has also woven in the detail of his own plans and delivers it with a passion that we typically saw from Hillary Clinton.
In my view, this was the most tightly written campaign speech Obama has delivered. This is a fall campaign style speech, reminiscent of Clinton in 1992/1996. Obama appears to have survived the GOP surge, and is hitting back with an impassioned, substantive argument for change and against McCain. The speech had narrative, broad themes, attacks on McCain and policy detail.
If Obama continues to give this speech across the battleground states, I would predict that he will vault back into the lead by the time of the debates.