The door for change is ajar, the bush legacy of incompetence and confusion have made it so. The game is set. Voters are less likely to reward the apparent heir, John McCain, for the disappointments of the last eight years unless they find it hard to trust Obama.

He used a lot of King's sayings in his speeches during the primaries and incorporated them in his own.

He wanted to run from a senator to the presidency.  Something only Kennedy accomplished if I am not mistaken

He went to speak in Berlin trying to copy Kennedy again in the famous I am a Berliner speech

He wanted to speak in a stadium just like Kennedy did.  Only  FDR and Kennedy had done it.

He needs to be unique and his own man.

Care needs to be taken that we do not see this moment as proof that we don't still have much work to do from the bottom up in order to make this kind of achievement possible for anyone who aspires to it.  Certainly, seeing a person of color accepting this honor is an inspiration to the black community, but it also makes people take a look around and see how much work still needs to be done across racial, ethnic and gender lines.  The presidency may be a symbol of the American Dream, but the real dream that most people want for themselves and their families is pretty basic: a decent home, a good education, a good job.  If he's smart, he will hit those economic points hard - but I wish there were a way he could do it without the "single mother on food stamps," because I think that's ripe for the GOP to exploit with the truth of his mother's circumstances.

Had Obama chosen Clinton to be his VP, there would have been an unbelievably historic moment where, with a black man and a woman standing on our largest stage, we could to declare that it was finally time to be one people, with universal needs and dreams, and put an end to seeing only the things that make us different from each other.

Oh, well.

I find I am at fierce odds with myself: proud of my party for this amazing achievement, and horrified by the mechanics behind it.  

In my mind, there will always be an asterisk next to Obama's name for the above reasons.  But I admit I was trained as an historian, not a politician, so I'm not big into getting over things.  I remember them.

The bravery and commitment were there for all to see whether these leaders were very young remarkable men around the age of, say, your average first time voter, or as lifelong beacons of inspiration in the sunset of their lives.

They didn't cloud their vision of equality and justice for all with qualifying nonsense like Except women, who'll have to wait fifty years when it jeopardize my cred with fellow misogynists in the news media or

The enemy will be determined using monitor gamma, tears analysis by my campaign manager, and a sliding scale of skin color swatches.

Leaders are known as leaders for a reason: they're bravely out in front when the goon squad is out cracking heads and debris is being thrown but not so much when the appause signs are blinking and awards are being given.

Mascots and pitchmen are the opposite: they hide behind proxies who do the dirty work of stirring up needless enmity so the Star of the Show can go over set design schematics and practice pausing for applause points.

This isn't the Obama I figured I'd support wholeheartedly when my initial choices were illegitimately removed from the nomination race, but it's The One revealed during the process, and The One the New Dems are putting out there now, without the apparent need of my support or vote.

The best I can offer him is no hard feelings and good luck in the last laps to the White House.

Just as I'm disappointed that the first woman Speaker of the House had to be Nancy Pelosi, I'm disappointed that the first African American President might be Barack Obama.

Not Dr Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott King, Shirley Chisolm, or Barbara Jordan.

  (Couldn't talk up the successful administration of the last Democrat elected to 2 terms since his opponent was too closely associated with that.)

  Then he  chooses as VP a pro-war Washington insider who can appeal to those working class low information voters without him (or them) being called Archie Bunker types.

Obama responded:

I don't think Doctor King would endorse any of us. I think he would call on the American people to hold us accountable.

It would truly be something to celebrate if he, by dint of his experience and his years of hard work successfully legislating for his constituents, becoming a much beloved and popular Senator because of his constant, consistent efforts, had rightfully earned the Nomination.

As it stands now, he's on that Greek columned podium tonight only because he and his surrogates viciously mauling the backs of two long-term Democrats, told those who didn't vote for him -- after repeatedly losing those voters which comprise important sections of the Democratic Base -- that he didn't need their votes anyway and then STILL needed an un-Democratic and, frankly, embarrassingly obvious assist from his flying monkeys at the DNC to "win".

The long-term consequences -- for not only the Democratic Party but for both race relations and gender equality in America -- of his short-sighted, greedy and desperately ham-handed actions remain to be seen in full.  

But if his sliding poll numbers and anemic fundraising are any indication, I don't believe tonight is anything to celebrate.

Who knows what he's going to say? If he plays to the people who already support him it will be the hopey changey stuff. If he tries to broaden his base then he will give a different speech.

I write about it here....it makes O's 3am text message seem old-fashioned....

"The GOP Toolbar...the Latest Thing in Their Arsenal... "
http://insightanalytical.wordp...

While Obama was messing with a text message which didn't quite work out as planned, the GOP has come up with something else...among other things, "fundraising made easy."

WITH the graphic of what it does!!!

*

"I'm not aiming for a lot of high rhetoric," [Obama] said Wednesday. "I am much more concerned with communicating how I intend to help middle-class families live their lives."

If Obama's smart he will reach out to those who so far have not been impressed with what he's said, or how he's said it.

Being a great speaker is a double-edged sword.  This talent can convince many of almost anything.  But others, who know their history, are skeptical of a great speaker for this very reason.

Having listened to his stump speech and his responses in the debate he is not a natural.

But that just tells me that he's worked really, really hard to hone his craft.  

I'm genuinely hopeful that his address to the democratic nation will soar and inspire -- regardless of what else people say and whatever reservations they may have regarding his policy stances Obama has inspired a whole generation (much younger than this skeptical old coot).

I think the issue of race (the historic part of this campaign) distorts the media's analysis of Obama and his skills.