With so much claptrap, hoo-haw and innuendo being slung around by the mainstream media and on the blogs it's easy to forget some of the basic realities that underly this primary season. Here's one of them.
The only reason in April of 2008 that this is not currently a Clinton vs. McCain presidential contest is that millions upon millions of voters have chosen to cast their lot with Senator Barack Obama.
Why have these millions of voters chosen Obama?
It has nothing to do him being a "sure thing" in November and even less to do with negative opinions people have about either of his formidable opponents. People vote for Obama, because, as we've learned from Iowa forward, voters understand that Barack Obama represents a powerful opportunity for our country. Obama's candidacy represents the potential for unifying our self-interest as voters with our national aspirations as Americans. No other candidate provides this in one package.
Within the Democratic Party, more and more delegates agree with every passing day, that the opportunity expressed in the candidacy of Barack Obama is our best choice for the nomination and the best choice for America in 2008...
In my initial essay why I support Barack Obama for President I had a simple, pragmatic reason for my choice: as a Democrat, I want our ideas and our candidates to win.
I think Barack Obama is the best vehicle for that goal. Barack Obama draws new voters into the Democratic fold, be they young people or converts to our cause. More than that, Barack Obama advances a broad, true-to-our-roots platform with room for every American to understand and sign on to our Democratic ideas. With Barack Obama at the top of the ticket we have an opportunity to build a new majority in Congress ready to advance policies that work for all of us and become the law of the land.
Look at how Barack Obama has run his groundbreaking, 'rewrite-the-textbooks' campaign. Obama has competed all-out in state after state. He has managed his resources effectively and unlocked the previously untapped power of hundreds of thousands of new small donors online. Barack Obama's speeches have deliberately been organizing opportunities. Those who give to Obama or attend one of his townhalls or speeches also tend, more likely than not, to become grassroots volunteers.
Barack Obama is about participation and participation wins elections.
Every time some joker online has echoed Paul Krugman's silly "cult" line about Obama's volunteers, I shrug (people forget that "cult" is exactly what Ana-Marie Cox called us 'lock-step followers of Markos' in advance of Yearlykos Las Vegas...) Those of us who've worked on the truly diverse team that has lined up behind Obama know that dedicated volunteers and passionate participation can move mountains on election day. That's why Super Tuesday did not spell "game over" for Barack Obama, in fact, exactly the opposite. That's why, win or lose in Pennsylvania, I am confident that the boots on the ground in the Keystone State will have a powerful sway on the ultimate delegate outcome in that state.
People don't vote for Obama because of what he's done for them in the past...or simply because of what they think they'll get from him in the future. People vote for Obama because he unites their rational self-interest with their aspirations for where they would like to see us go as a nation.
With Obama, we get both.
And that's important. That's the Obama opportunity:
What's next for America? We are in a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. The planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it’s slowly slipping away. We are working harder for less. We’ve never paid more for health care or for college. It’s harder to save and it’s harder to retire. And most of all we’ve lost faith that our leaders can or will do anything about it.
We were promised compassionate conservatism and all we got was Katrina and wiretaps. We were promised a uniter, and we got a President who could not even lead the half of the country that voted for him. We were promised a more ethical and more efficient government, and instead we have a town called Washington that is more corrupt and more wasteful than it was before. And the only mission that was ever accomplished is to use fear and falsehood to take this country to a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged.
It is because of these failures that America is listening, intently, to what we say here today – not just Democrats, but Republicans and Independents who’ve lost trust in their government, but want to believe again.
And it is because of these failures that we not only have a moment of great challenge, but also a moment of great opportunity. We have a chance to bring the country together in a new majority.
-Barack Obama, Iowa, Nov. 2007
No one else talks like that. Though they could. They just choose not to. I quote Obama from that Jefferson-Jackson day Iowa speech as a reminder as well. This man has run a positive, uplifting, uniting campaign from day one. Never forget that. Obama's message has been simple and direct. We are so much better and so much more effective when we work together to confront the problems we face as a nation.
I would add that it is precisely when we come together...red states and blue states, big states and small states, white, black, Asian, Latino, immigrant and American Indian, gay and straight, that our self-interest can best find effective reflection in that broader goal of a nation working together as one.
You pass health care with votes from Montana and Nebraska and Colorado. You pass a change of course in Iraq with votes from New Hampshire and Iowa and California's Central Valley. You pass regulatory reform with votes from Minnesota and Virginia and Missouri. Barack Obama knows this. It's how he's run his campaign. It's why super delegates from all over the nation are flocking to his side.
They want our ideas and our candidates to win. And for that to happen, we need a candidate who can speak to our common ideals and our common self-interest.
That candidate is Barack Obama.
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