BARACK OBAMA GIVES SPEECH OF A GENERATION
28 August 2008 9:29 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
Reporting from Denver
“If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”
– Barack Obama, Democratic Nominee for President
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Tonight at Invesco Field, Mile High Stadium, Barack Obama met Martin Luther King, Jr. in soaring rhetoric, promise of tomorrow, but with a different mandate. King had a dream. Barack Obama has realized it, being just one more step away from the presidency.
Soaring rhetoric met specific ideas and goals, coupled with a slashing critique of his opponent that we have not heard to date. Barack Obama transformed his famous rhetoric into a lethal blade that not only eviscerated the Republican policies that have brought this country to the edge of financial ruin, but also has made the U.S. less safe in a world made more dangerous by diplomatic neglect, ruinous hubris, and misguided arrogance. He elevated his candidacy above where it’s been before.
There has been no other political event in U.S. history to match what Barack Obama achieved tonight. Never before has a political candidate reached so high and achieved such fireworks in front of tens of thousands.
An African American man next to me just shook his head, saying “Lord have mercy. After all these years…” Then his voice trailed off.
I had the pleasure of being in the stands, way up high, but in front of the action, not stuck in the media room as usual. I thank the volunteer “angel” who made it possible, because when the fireworks went off, I saw it with my fellow citizens who came simply dreaming about a better America to come and hoping the man they came to see tonight would start us on that road. No one was disappointed.
Barack Obama reached for the stars tonight. By all estimations he succeeded.
The Republicans are in rewrite.
“It was a genuinely outstanding speech. It was magnificent. It is the finest – and I saw Cuomo’s speech, I saw Kennedy in ‘80, I even saw Douglas MacArthur, I saw Martin Luther King – this is the greatest convention speech, and probably the most important because unlike Cuomo and the others this is an acceptance speech. This came out of the heart of America and he went right at the heart of America…” – Patrick J. Buchanan
