In Defense of Obama's Convention Address

I wasn’t in Charlotte last Thursday. I can’t comment on the crowd’s supposedly dulled response to Obama’s convention address. But I can say that I was moved as I watched the live stream in my kitchen. I can say that my reaction wasn’t sedated--in fact, I was more excited by this speech than I was at any time during the 2008 campaign. Yes, I was one of those doe-eyed collegiate voters who believed in the kind of Change the Republican Party has tried to mock Obama for, and I chose to cast a ballot for Ralph Nader to avoid the disappointment of another party-line president. But on Thursday, President Obama gave voice to an important development in voters like myself, a development the political commenters overlooked in their less-than-stellar reviews of the speech.

Contrary to most pundits’ opinions, the speech wasn’t flat or boring or unenthused--it was pointed toward a new need in people like me. In Obama’s words: “we're getting back to basics and doing what America's always done best.”

The political lives of voters like myself have been determined by the kind of lofty rhetoric always known to be more about image than policy: family values and American patriotism from the right, a naïve version of “we care about the little guys” and bipartisanship for the Democrats, and a notion of “true democracy” found in the most ambitious of the Occupy movement’s chants. Obama’s speech was the evolution of that rhetoric, tying it down into concrete, tangible goods. We’ve had fervor and ideals, but now we want real, substantial change in laws and policies.

Many will claim here that even the best received convention speech is still nothing but a speech to win an election, not an attempt to govern. Politico rightly points out important positions that were missing from Obama’s speech, deflating somewhat the idea that Obama is revealing any dedication to concrete change in the lives of Americans. This is, in fact, just an updated version of the same criticism Obama has long received with different shading from both the right and the far-left (those Nader voters like me): he is more image and orator than man dedicated to social justice.

In that sense, perhaps the convention address merely signals a more shrewd version of Obama the campaigner who has found a way to tap into the very segments he couldn’t coax in 2008 to shore up his base and ride the wave to reelection. The Democrats would then have found an answer to Karl Rove’s politicking and nothing more.

But in either case--whether Obama has truly become a hardened politician set on crafting groundbreaking legislation for the good of the nation or simply found a new framing for his campaign ads--this speech plays an important role in transforming the grounds of the election. Discussions will now focus on changing voters’ experiences--easing unemployment, bearing some of the financial burden for struggling families, avoiding healthcare woes for the elderly. Romney has already taken the cue, telling Meet the Press that he would keep Obamacare’s mandates on pre-existing conditions and the ability for young people to stay on their parents’ insurance plans.

Bill Clinton’s presence in Charlotte only increases the importance of Obama’s new stated direction. White House senior adviser David Plouffe stated that the Obama campaign viewed the Convention as unified package, rather than discrete speeches. In that light, Clinton’s remarkable detailing of facts and figures (with high marks for veracity in comparison) not only focused on what has actually been done by the President and his opponents, but it relied on the charisma of a known politicker and a man both respected and decried for his willingness to deal in Washington.

As such, the Right cannot claim that Obama is merely an orator--in reaching out to Clinton (and around him in that already infamous hug), Obama showed a commitment to governing in a way he hasn’t before. Taken as a whole, the convention disclosed Obama’s willingness to politick if it will take the basic steps necessary to ensure the programs needed by so many Americans. Obama’s speech was the encapsulation of that aim; it was a speech that seemed modest only because it showed that his sights shifted to attainable, tangible goals.

But that is no modest task for a speech. It was the clearing of the political land, an attempt to wipe clean the distortion of existing rhetoric to focus on policies. And though I--and voters like me--will worry that this Obama will cave to Republican pressures, will become a new Clinton and pass a new NAFTA, will be shown to be be nothing more than a clever new iteration of political machinations, the speech still effectively spoke to the segments of the population that want to believe that our options are greater than a disappointing Occupy movement, that “[y]es, our path is harder, but it leads to a better place.” If it is a lie, it is a resounding lie; and if not, it is precisely what I want and what we need.