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'We Are a Better Country Than This'

Posted on: Friday, 29 August 2008, 06:00 CDT

By Susan Page

DENVER -- The people who preceded Barack Obama on stage Thursday night weren't well known or smooth-talking. They were six regular folks (all of whom happened to hail from battleground states) with concerns about the country's direction and complaints about its impact on their lives.

A displaced manufacturing worker from Marion, Ind., named Barney Smith said to laughter that he wanted a president who "puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney."

Obama is the first African American to win a major-party nomination for the White House and his early campaign was fueled by his opposition to the Iraq war, but that wasn't the image or the issue he emphasized in his speech accepting the Democratic nod.

Instead, he made the economy his prime message, blamed the Bush administration for doing too little to respond and portrayed Republican presidential candidate John McCain as offering nothing but more of the same.

"We meet at one of those defining moments -- a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more," Obama said. "Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay and tuition that is beyond your reach."

The "failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed presidency of George W. Bush," he said, adding: "America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this."

Say it again

Obama's tone was populist. The words he repeated most often included "America and American" (40 times), "you" and "your" (58 times) and "promise" (31 times). And "McCain," 21 times.

Obama, who at times has seemed reluctant to go on the attack, portrayed his Republican opponent as a man who should be honored for his war service but rejected for his politics, someone who doesn't understand the financial strains on many American families. "John McCain doesn't get it," he said.

McCain "has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect," Obama said, a tiny figure on a curved blue stage. "But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90% of the time. Sen. McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush was right more than 90% of the time?

"I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a 10% chance on change."

Before the speech, the McCain campaign had blistered Obama as a celebrity able to deliver a lofty speech without having much to say.

Perhaps in response, Obama chose substance over flourish, detailed proposals over high rhetoric.

At some points, the speech seemed like a State of the Union address, detailing proposals to recruit teachers, lower health care premiums and revise bankruptcy laws. It lacked some of the emotional grip of his keynote address to the convention four years ago.

Still, he was preceded on stage by the likes of Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow, and he spoke in a rock-star setting.

As darkness fell, Obama stood above the 50-yard line at the Denver Broncos stadium, his face projected on the scoreboard and two huge TV screens to either side of the stage.

The stadium was jammed with about 84,000 people, including campaign volunteers from across the country and tens of thousands of Coloradoans. Between speeches, campaign aides urged them to send text messages and go to phone banks set up inside to contact undecided voters.

By way of introduction

Convention acceptance speeches don't determine election outcomes -- the fall debates traditionally draw bigger TV audiences and have more political impact -- but they are an invaluable opportunity for a candidate to introduce himself to voters who are just be tuning in to the political campaign.

Obama introduced himself as a heartland American, talking more about the Kansas heritage of his mother than his own native state of Hawaii. He referred to Scripture. He reminisced about the sacrifices made by his grandmother, who worked as a secretary in a bank.

And he never directly discussed the racial breakthrough that his candidacy represents, though he did recall Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered 45 years to the day earlier.

Obama's 43-minute speech was the capstone of a convention that seems to have succeeded on two critical fronts: stitching together a Democratic National Convention that had been split in two nearly even factions by the primaries and giving Obama a bit of a bump in the Gallup daily tracking poll after several weeks when his race against McCain seemed stalled.

He tackled a persistent weakness: questions among some voters about whether the first-term Illinois senator is qualified to be commander in chief. McCain had supported Bush policies toward Iraq and Afghanistan that raise their own questions, he said.

"If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and the judgment to serve as the next commander in chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have," he said.

To McCain's jibe that he puts country first, "I've got news for you, John McCain," Obama said. "We all put our country first." (c) Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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