Posted by
LS on Saturday, August 30, 2008 5:00:00 PM
I watched the Senator's speech at the Convention and fell asleep in the middle of it, so I didn't quite get into step with the 84,000 people in the stadium who were cheering throughout his speech. I woke up in the midst of the commentators saying how thrilled they were with the speech and thought I really must have slept through much of it because I didn't see what they were excited about. So, I watched the speech through its entirety, and still didn't get what they were so enthused about. Perhaps these tribal types of events are what's necessary for Obama to get his supporters to follow him. It's group think and working yourself into a froth in support of whatever the speaker is suggesting. Someone tells the crowd what they are seeing and feeling, and the crowd falls in line. Then they throw the human sacrifice into the volcano. It doesn't translate quite so well over a television set and that's where the media steps in to tell people what to think and feel.
I was let down by the speech. As a Hillary supporter, I wanted to hear something that would make me want to support him. I wanted to hear soaring words about how our country would be facing the trials of the future. But it was just a stump speech. I was astonished that he didn't take advantage of the occasion to say what advances our country has made since Martin Luther King's wonderful speech. He appears to not get it. He's there because of the struggles by African Americans who paid a high price to put him in a position to run for president. But he didn't expound on those struggles and didn't allow our country to truly bask in the moment for how far we have come.
Senator Obama is supposedly looking to change our country, but if he has no real appreciation of where our country has been, how can any significant change occur? I, for one, cannot fathom why he didn't put Senator Clinton on his ticket. But this is again evidence that he doesn't get it. Had she been on the ticket, his speech could have been lofty for not only himself and African Americans, but for women as well. Over half of our country has not reached the pinnacle and that could have changed in this election. What a lost opportunity. I truly don't know of any other Democrat who would not have taken advantage of this historic opportunity. He made the presidential race solely about him, and that makes his quest both less consequential and scary. He doesn't have the vision to change our country.
Obama castigated Senator McCain for not getting it. But John McCain did get it as far as I am concerned when he put Governor Palin on his ticket. He understood that women were not only slighted but stomped on when Senator Clinton was not put on the ticket. He understood that history was not given its due. Maybe it's only middle-aged women who have faced discrimination in their own lives to know what was lost. John McCain has lived long enough to understand, age does have its upside. John McCain has my vote.