We’ve heard a lot of talk from various sources this primary season about what this primary fight is about:  race, demographics, generational shifts, identity politics, elitism, anti-intellectualism, arugula and beer (if you buy Newsweek’s disappointingly sophomoric take on things) and so forth.  And there’s no doubt that each of these factors (well ... maybe not arugula and beer, but ....) has played a role in how things have played themselves out over the past few months.  

But, as I see it, now that this primary season is almost finished, I think that most, if not all, of these factors are really secondary symptoms of the main difference we have been fighting about, rather than the fundamental difference.  As I see it, the fundamental difference that lies at the core of the rather bitter (oops, did I use that word?) campaign this year is a sharp contrasting difference of perspective in terms of the appropriate political strategy for our party in national elections.

More after the jump.

I’ve now had a few days to reflect on Obama’s recent address on race, and, frankly, I’m convinced that it was one of the finest public speeches made by any public figure in recent memory.

Many commentators have focused on the more distinctly political aspects of his speech – the nuanced approach to Rev. Wright’s commentary, the contextualizing of his offensive commentary, his measured, adult tone, and so forth.  And all of that is, of course, extremely important, given that this speech was, in its essence, a political speech delivered in the heat of a sharply contested primary campaign.