Obama heads to the White House

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

As for Obama? Maybe you saw it. Simply put: he sounded like a president. The theme was not just change; it was a new unity. And as a black man, he helps heal the past as well as forge the future. This really was history tonight. To win so many white voices, and bring together so many minorities, and use the unifying language that leaves the toxins of race and partisanship behind: This was the moment America stopped being afraid.

That's from a conservative. A fantastic speech. Is he stoppable?

Comments

[Benjamin Haslem]

I watched Obama's July 2004 keynote address to the Democrat's National Convention in Boston on my PC at work one afternoon.
I'd heard about him in passing but knew very little. I sat transfixed and, I know this will sound very wanky, couldn't fight the feeling that I was watching a defining moment in the history of the United States. Watch the video here and judge for yourself: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/barackobama2004dnc.htm

[Benjamin Haslem]

Sorry Trev,
The URL runs off the page.
Here it is split in two.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/barackobama2004
dnc.htm

[Allan Jenkins]

Virginia Postrel (http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/) wrote a book a few years back in which she noted the interesting axis in politics is not left-right, but static-dynamic.

Too many politicians on both sides of the aisle are static: clinging to yesterday's notions. Obama, because of his youth and his lack of party baggage, is able to live "out of the box" (sorry to throw a hackneyed phrase at you, but it IS midnight).

He has new ideas -- not brilliantly new, but newish -- and no real reason to discard his ideas because they are new. Hence his appeal with the crowd tired of Bush and Clinton.

But this is probably his only chance... eight years from now, he will be such a part of the Washington system that he will find it hard to step away from it.