Earlier in New York, Barack Obama challenged (also in the vodpod) the the media's habit of mythmaking and laid out his agenda, touching on the big three items he wants to accomplish as president. (1) End the war in Iraq. (2) Develop an alternative energy economy. (3) Fix our broken health care system.
This is the time, he says. This is that moment when we can come together and actually get something done. It reminds me of that Reagan quote I posted earlier today:
Everywhere we have met thousands of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans from all economic conditions and walks of life bound together in that community of shared values of family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom. They are concerned, yes, but they are not frightened. They are disturbed, but not dismayed. They are the kind of men and women Tom Paine had in mind when he wrote--during the darkest days of the American Revolution--"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."
Nearly 150 years after Tom Paine wrote those words, an American president told the generation of the Great Depression that it had a "rendezvous with destiny." I believe that this generation of Americans today has a rendezvous with destiny.
There's a striking similarity between Reagan's rhetoric and Obama's. The difference, of course, is in what they want to do. But they were both substantive and specific, and yet oddly, both were attacked as being actors and empty suits. (Wouldn't it have been nice if Reagan were content to have merely mailed it in?)
In 2008, it is probably enough for Obama to simply not be McCain, to not be Bush. To just say he wants change vs. more of the same and that he wants the economy to get better. But he's actually laying out a positive, progressive agenda. That tells me he's thinking beyond the election -- he's thinking about the presidency, and what he actually wants to get done if he wins. And that's pretty exciting.
© Jed Lewison