All year Barack Obama’s campaign has been a well-oiled machine. So I wasn’t surprised that last week’s Democratic National Convention was free of the disorganization of past conventions. Despite being egged on by the mainstream media, Obama’s convention was free of the expected rifts and strife. The sessions even started and ended on time.
The convention attracted millions of viewers and closing night was the most watched TV show of the year — ahead of the Olympics, the Oscars and the “American Idol” finals. Forty million watched, including one-in-five African-Americans, Obama’s stirring acceptance speech.
But the entire convention had stirring speeches with unforgettable lines.
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.: “Forty-five years to the day after a young preacher called out, ‘Let freedom ring,’ let history show in this fourth week of August in this Mile-High City, freedom in America has never rung from a higher mountaintop than it does here today.”
Michelle Obama: “I stand here today at the crosscurrents of history knowing that my piece of the American dream is a blessing hard won by those who came before me.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton: “No way, no how, no McCain. Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president. Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice. If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they’re shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going. But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama president.”
Former President Bill Clinton: “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power. We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief. Sound familiar? It didn’t work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won’t work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.”
The convention’s closing night I watched Obama’s speech at a campaign “Watch Party” with 50 people of different ages, genders and races watching history.
When that laid-off RCA worker from Marion, Ind., Barney Smith exclaimed “We need a president that cares more about Barney Smith than Smith Barney”; the house erupted, cheering his name, as did 85,000 in Mile High Stadium and millions watching TV.
Smith’s line fired everyone up for Barack Obama’s biggest speech from one used to giving big speeches.
More serious than I’d seen him, Obama went straight after John McCain, “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell — but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives. It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.”
Obama also addressed values, including abortion, gun ownership and family, “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 for providing the love and guidance their children need.”
With running mate Sen. Joe Biden, who can speak the language of white blue collar voters, the Obama/Biden ticket looked strong leaving Denver.
And then John McCain discovered conservative affirmative action.
For years conservatives condemned affirmative action saying it promotes unqualified people just because they’re women or minorities.
McCain seeking an edge in a historic election turned to a woman. But instead of choosing an experienced Republican, pro-life woman, like Sens. Elizabeth Dole or Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; even Indiana’s Lieutenant Gov. Becky Skillman, McCain reached thousands of miles from the mainstream choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Palin’s been governor just 20 months. Before that she was mayor (six years) and council member (four years) of Wasilla, Alaska, a 12.4 square mile town 43 highway miles from Alaska’s largest city Anchorage (pop. 279,671).
When Palin began her political career in 1992, Wasilla’s population was 4,028. It grew 35 percent to 5,469 by 2000. In the four years since she left the mayor’s office, Wasilla’s population exploded; rising 40 percent to 9,780 in 2007.
Republicans claim Palin is political wunderkind, attacking her party’s history of corruption. But she won the governship in 2006 with just 48.3 percent of the vote in a multi-candidate race. In population, Alaska (683,478) is as large as an Indiana congressional district. In 2006, Palin got as many votes as the late Julia Carson did.
The last vice presidential nominee with this little government experience wasn’t Dan Quayle in 1988, but Spiro Agnew in 1968. Agnew had served four years as chief executive of Baltimore County (Maryland) and two years as Maryland’s governor when Nixon picked him.
Agnew was later found guilty of accepting bribes while holding his varied offices. Palin allegedly fired Alaska’s State Police superintendent because he wouldn’t fire her brother-in-law locked in a messy divorce and custody battle with Palin’s sister.
A moral absolutist, against sex education and for family values, four days after being named McCain’s running mate, Palin revealed her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnant and will (shotgun) marry the baby’s father.
Republicans have regularly railed against Barack Obama’s inexperience (eight years representing an Illinois state Senate district one-third Alaska’s population and four years as senator from Illinois (12.9 million population).
Now, Republicans extol as experienced a woman who for 10 years ran a town with a population as big as the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood then ran for 20 months a state with two-thirds the population of Indianapolis.
Republicans dare say Palin, a University of Idaho grad, whose been lightly traveled in the country and world, is as qualified as a graduate of Columbia and Harvard who’s traveled throughout America and the world. Poppycock!
Spiro Agnew was one of America’s worst vice-presidents. Let’s hope Sarah Palin doesn’t follow in his footsteps.
What I’m hearing in the streets
Why did city officials not block streets or deploy police before Saturday’s Labor Day Parade? Organizers had to call a deputy mayor to get action. Why the disrespect?
See ‘ya next week.
Amos Brown’s opinions are not necessarily those of the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. You can contact him at (317) 221-0915 or by e-mail at ACBROWN@AOL.COM.
