Obama's Speech

The initial response that I have to Barack Obama's acceptance speech that closed the Democratic Convention tonight is that it is a game-changer; the campaign just shifted into a higher gear. Best comment capturing this notion comes from Mother Jones' Kevin Drum.

This is an iron fist in a velvet glove. Or is it a velvet fist in an iron glove? Whichever it is, he's calling out McCain in plain language not just for running a nasty, Rovian campaign, but for running a fundamentally unserious campaign. By tackling this head on, Obama has put a serious dent in McCain's ability to continue campaigning with dumb soundbites and too-cute-by-half innuendo. This isn't a teenager's campaign for junior high student council, he was saying, it's a campaign for president of the United States and you're old enough to know that you should damn well treat it that way.

And then, there was the conclusion. I'm basically pretty immune to that kind of soaring, but relatively content-free, oratory, but I was just spellbound. I honestly can't remember the last time that's happened. And I don't care what the talking heads insisted on jabbering about all day, the setting was perfect, the stage was perfect, Obama's cadences were perfect, and it was just about as good a political rallying cry as I've ever heard. John McCain looks very, very small right about now.

Chris Matthews just said something similar on MSNBC, something about how this will become a great, substantive debate. That assumes that John McCain can put aside the "dumb soundbites and too-cute-by-half innuendo" Drum refers to and step up to meet Obama's challenge in a serious manner. I doubt that he can. For the sake of our country, I hope that I am wrong. We'll begin to see the answer tomorrow.

Mr. McCain, the ball is in your court.

--Ballard Burgher