Frank Rich has penned a great piece this week on the Romney speech and why Oprah matters more than the pundits realized. The real kicker is at the end however, when he argues that the real reason Obama is on the rise is the divisive politics the Republicans have been pushing for years. Here is the money quote;
For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of "Faith in America", some Americans may see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself.
My thoughts on why he is spot on and Obama might have it in the bag below.
It is said frequently that in presidential elections Americans are often looking for the opposite of the last administration. Thus, Bush was compelling to some because he was going to restore the honor and integrity of the office of the presidency after years of sleaze. This of course was crap, with the exception of the sexual scandals of the Clinton years, but that was how he was sold. Carter was the anti-Nixon, and Reagan was the anti-Carter.
This time around, the country have had a belly full of the Lee Atwater/Rove style of politics, the politics of "fear and smear" which arguably reached it's nadir under the Bush administration. That isn't what America is all about, at least the America we were all raised to believe in. Obama calls us back to "the better angels of our nature's", and thus is the perfect anti-Bush candidate out there.
Frank Rich is right, a vote for Obama is "a Vote for faith in America itself".