I just came back from a gathering of 200 of my fellow Alaskans who came together to watch Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. You can find the text of the speech at http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/28/obama.transcript/index.html.
I am so proud to be an Obama supporter tonight. Listening to Senator Obama and reviewing the text of his speech once I got home confirmed my belief once again that Barack Obama will be a President for all Americans. He eschewed attacks on character and shared his vision to change the country. A vision that he acknowledges cannot be attained alone. As he put it:
What the naysayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s about you.
If I tried to give every highlight from this 45 minute speech (seemed shorter), then you’d be reading a long time. So here are three themes:
1) Respect for opponents – past and current
Obama began by thanking the people who ran against him in the primaries, singling “especially the one who traveled the farthest — a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and yours — Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
While Obama attacked McCain fiercely on the issues, he went out of his way not to attack Senator McCain’s moral character. The first time he mentioned John McCain, he prefaced it with:
Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and our respect.
And later in his speech, he did not attribute McCain’s economic policies to malevolence or indifference:
Now, I don’t believe that Sen. McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn’t know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under $5 million a year?
I realize that the $5 million line McCain said was to say that people who made more than that were rich. But I think it’s fair to infer that he considers people under that line “not rich” which is our usually proxy for “middle class.” But notice that challenges Senator McCain’s knowledge and not his character.
We in America have lived through eight years where disagreement with the least of the Administration’s policies were considered disloyal and/or evil by the President and his supporters. After eight years of “I can’t understand why people hate America so much they won’t support the President’s policies” it was a wonderful refreshment to hear:
But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and each other’s patriotism.
The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America.
Those are the words of a President of the United States of America, and not a simple party leader. And I look forward to hearing them from the next President of the United States.
2) Specific proposals, especially on energy
Senator Obama offered specific proposals on the type of change he’d bring. I don’t agree with all of them, but who has total agreement with anybody? But I was VERY pleased to see these proposals on energy, some of which I’ve highlighted before:
And for the sake of our economy, our security and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East. We will do this.
Washington’s been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and by the way John McCain’s been there for 26 of them. And in that time, he’s said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil that we had as the day that Sen. McCain took office.
Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.
As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.
America, now is not the time for small plans.
This is a bold plan in the style of Kennedy’s Apollo project. And $150 billion over 10 years is actually a modest experiment when you consider that we spend $10B a month on the Iraq Occupation. We would do much more to defang Islamofacism by making high oil revenues a thing of the past than continuing the occupation. We can do it. As a civilization we’ve made radical changes in energy resources before. And we can again. We just have to want to do it. And Obama made that clear:
Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient.
3) Personal Responsibility
Democrats are often painted as the party of irresponsibility, but Senator Obama made it clear this is not the case by calling for more personal responsibility:
And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America’s promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our “intellectual and moral strength.” Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can’t replace parents; that government can’t turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children.
Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility — that’s the essence of America’s promise.
All in all, a very positive speech full of hope for America while noting the important challenges that face it. The world has it’s dangers, but we don’t have to be fearful, we can take charge of our lives and of our country. That’s what we need for America in the 21st Century and its why I hope you’ll vote for Barack Obama on November 4th!
