I didn't plan ahead of time to tune into the Democratic National Convention. So am surprised to find myself watching for the past two nights. What am I looking for?
As someone who's planning to vote for "anyone but Bush," rather than Kerry in particular, I realize that at least in part, I'm looking for some indication that there are Leaders amongst the Dems who are going to speak truth to the current imbalanced power. Who are going to emanate enough self-assurance, intelligence and charisma to at least have a chance of drawing the factions in this country back into civil conversation. Who think that "united states" is actually a pretty cool idea.
(It's great to soak in the Gore-Carter-Bill Clinton verbiage, but these are not people I'll have opportunities to vote for ever again.)
Why look for it here? Because my crowd, however numerous or not, the ironic, the mostly-unaffiliated, the "I-care-and-maybe-I'm-political-but-I'd-never-get-involved-in-a-political-party" types, may have no where else to look for a while. There is no chance of a third-party candidate being viable at the national level in time to restore the U.S. as on of the kids in the world sandbox, to steer energy policy towards liberation from fossil fuels, to re-establish policies that are going to help the poor and let the middle class continue to exist, and to give reformist elements in the Republican Party (McCain, REP America) time to revitalize their own arena.
Which brings me to Obama. Who could fail to be moved, listening to this man's words last night, seeing him connect with the crowd? This was why I was watching the convention. I nearly cried. I thought, move to Illinois and work for this man.
kos (at DailyKos, natch), with his usual intelligence, dissect's the Right's Wednesday-morning quarterbacking attempts to co-op Obama. They must be shocked to realize they've got someone to worry about:
"The reason Obama has put the Right into a quandry is that he exposed, in one masterful performance, every caricature the Right has of liberalism. He affirmed our belief in government's ability to make life better without conjuring up images of "welfare queens". He affirmed the right every American has to believe in the god of his or her choice, or no god for that matter, without making it a public matter. He affirmed the beauty of multiculturalism, that we are more than white, black, Asian, Latino, or anything else, without feeding the fiction that we all want a balkanized country. He affirmed that unity is an American value, while dividing Americans based on sexual orientation or race is not. "