It's Obama

Star Tribune Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:54:51 GMT
Obama declares victory at raucous Xcel Energy Center rally

Barack Obama declared victory Tuesday night at a raucous rally at the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. "Tonight, after fifty-four hard-fought contests, our primary season has finally come to an end," he told thousands of supporters who had jammed the arena to witness an historic moment as Obama became the first black candidate in the nation's history to become a major party presidential nominee. The crowd of 17,000 exploded in an ear-splitting roar. "Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States," he said, setting off another roar even louder and longer. An additional 15,000 supporters watched the speech on a big screen outside the arena, according to fire officials. In prepared remarks, Obama praised his vanquished rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and took direct aim at John McCain, the Republican he will face in November.

Matthew Yglesias has something to say about the Audacity of Hope:

It's a fundamentally bold, hopeful brand of politics. And I think it's no coincidence that that theme's been at the center of his campaign. Relative to Clinton, you see two people with similar policy agendas. But Clinton comes from a school of politics that says liberalism can't really win on the questions of war and peace, identity and authenticity, crime and punishment. It says that we live in a fundamentally conservative nation, and that the savvy progressive politician kind of burrows in and tries to make the best of a bad situation. It's an attitude very much borne of the brutally difficult experience of organizing for McGovern in Texas and running for governor in Arkansas at the height of Reaganism. Relative to McCain, Obama thinks it's possible to accomplish things in the world. He thinks the United States faces a lot of serious international challenges, but doesn't see them as primarily driven by menacing and implacable foes. Obama thinks that a combination of visionary leadership and shrewd bargaining can greatly improve our ability to tackle key priorities without any great expenditure of our resources.

All in all, the pessimist in me sees it as an approach to politics designed to set us up for a hard fall when it fails. But in a deeper sense I find it incredibly appealing. To me, it's incredibly frustrating to hear that ideas "can't be done" not because they won't work, but because people know -- just know -- that they're not politically possible, even though they're things that have never been tried. I think almost every worthwhile accomplishment of progressive governance -- from the UN and NATO and the NPT to Medicare and Medicaid and Title I school aid to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act to the ongoing feminist revolution that's completely transformed American society in a generation and a half with no sign of slowing down -- is the kind of thing that before it happened, a lot of people would have said that it couldn't happen. And of course sometimes the pessimists are right, but unless you sometimes assume they're wrong then nothing's ever going to happen.

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