THE Speech

I had a different reaction than most to Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night in Denver.

To me, it was an "OK speech, delivered well". Nothing too new, except the pugnacious stabs at McCain. Clearly targeted at the middle-of-the-road voter, which makes sense given the huge TV audience.

I preferred the speeches on the night of the Iowa caucus, or from San Antonio the night of the Ohio/Texas caucuses, which had more drama.

I am clearly in the minority, though, and the text seems to have stood up well to close examination by the various political operatives and former speechwriters among the news TV commentators. They really swallowed the patriotism angle hook, line, and sinker. MSNBC reduced itself to a cheering section, which made me feel somewhat sad.

Even the Republicans on Larry King seemed to credit the speech's quality and were reduced to pointing out that a single speech, no matter how good, can not win the election for Obama. Ben Stein fully comprehended the cribbing from MLK's speeches in Obama's text--good for him, and in fairness, Obama did signal clearly his homage to them--but then pointed out that King's speeches are the best in American history (!)

The wisdom of Obama's speech, and his choice of Joe Biden, couldn't have been underlined more emphatically by McCain's reactive choice of Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. If Obama can grab a firm grip on the moderates (which McCain has, for the moment, given up through his choice of an extreme right-winger), this can be won, for practical purposes, fairly soon.