I just finished watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech as candidate for the Democrats as President Of the United States.
Wow.
This wasn’t just soaring rhetoric; he laid out some of the policies he wanted to do, and he was taking it to John McCain and the Republicans and going head-on against the attacks they’ve been levelling against him. He was also being pretty gutsy in laying out that he respected those who disagreed with him on gay marriage, guns, abortion, social security, etc. Talk about being bold for bringing up all those right-wing boogeymen topics.
Full text of speech here, but you really need to see it to capture the significance of the speech. I’d say historic, but I’ll wait to use that phrase if/when he’s elected as President of the United States, and I do believe he will be. I’ve said elsewhere that in the end, I think Obama is going to get over 300 Electoral Votes and win comfortably. If he keeps up performances like tonight, and performs this way in the debates, McCain and the Republicans won’t know what hit them.
UPDATE: NBC’s Chuck Todd details how the response from the McCain camp shows even they were taken aback by the power of this speech:
UPDATE 2: Check out what a Republican consultant said on CNN tonight: “whoever didn’t get picked for Republican VP today may be a lucky Republican.”
Obama is excellent at reading speaches.
The speech was loaded with downright distortions and falsehoods.
He does not do well in debates, or even interviews (ie. live at Saddleback two weeks ago a disaster).
The Obama campaign will isolate him from any potential hard hitting interviews, and keep its fingers crossed during the debates. Given the political climate, he should win.