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Barack Obama spoke to this gathering of liberal and progressive activists today and had the crowd mesmerized. Watching him speak reminded me of none other than Bubba himself -- Obama's got the kind of charisma that makes you not mind too much that he's a perfectly-tuned instrument for a modern media campaign. Maybe he can't keep his promise to introduce a new kind of politics; maybe he's being less than honest when he says he offered a proposal that would end the occupation of Iraq by next March and maybe his carbon trading program and pitch for corn ethanol are dubious proposals, at best, but when he talks that talk ... none of it matters.
But Obama offered more than fluff; he said some things that I've never heard a Democratic candidate talk about. He said we should make the minimum wage a living wage and index it to the cost of living instead of "waiting to fix it every ten years."
Obama, like the Grateful Dead, is a different creature live, on the stump, then he is in canned studio settings. The audience responded in classic bloack church style: 'tell it,' the crowd shouted when he paused. "Amen" was at least implied.
The conventional wisdom is that there is a not insignificant group of voters who won't tell pollsters that they would never vote for a black man. Obama seems like he's got the chops to overcome that.
We'll try to post some video later.
UPDATE: Here is video of Obama's speech.
Tagged as: take back america, tba
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
Obama: "I'm a Hope Mongerer" [VIDEO]
Obama's speech has already become one of the most buzzed about of the speeches so far at the Take Back America conference in Washington DC. Obama talks about his activist roots in Chicago, about why and how he came to decide to run for president, and the deep feeling he believes exists in this country to "turn the page" and embrace "something new." What comes across in the video to your right, is the charisma and personality that made Obama a star back in 2004 and appeared to be fading in recent weeks. If this video is any indication, Hillary had better watch her back in the 2008 presidential race.
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