Barack Obama's Big Challenge: Inspire with Details

A convention that could have been chaotic has gone remarkably well. Now it's up to Obama to deliver on the promise.

By Richard Sammon, Senior Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

August 28, 2008

DENVER -- Barack Obama has given many big political speeches in his life, but none as important as tonight's address to 80,000 of the party faithful who will assemble in the football stadium of the Denver Broncos -- and the millions more watching at home.

He couldn't have asked for a better setup. The first three days of the convention have gone well for Obama, as the wounds of the long primary fight were salved. Hillary and Bill Clinton both gave Obama unambiguous endorsements and along with vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, they began to build the case for Obama and against the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. Biden was especially effective in questioning the judgment of his old friend McCain, while making the case that Obama shares a similar story with working-class Americans. Together, Biden and the Clintons set the scene for the big speech tonight, but it will be up to Obama to deliver.

The challenge is huge. Obama must use his famed rhetorical skills to inspire, while providing enough nitty-gritty details to sway down-to-earth skeptics. He has to reintroduce himself to the American people in a way that shows he has the qualifications to be commander in chief as well as the life experience to empathize with the problems that Americans face in their everyday lives.

Expect the address to sound, look and feel presidential, walking a fine line of trying to help Americans get comfortable with the idea of Obama as president without letting him appear arrogant and presumptuous. He'll emphasize his campaign themes of hope and change and the need to rise above partisanship and political rancor, but he'll steer clear of suggesting radical change. He needs to be deeply reassuring as he presents his views on the role of the government and the U.S. role in the world and his stewardship of both, were he to be elected.

He'll work hard to tie McCain to President Bush, as every other convention speaker has done in an obvious effort to capitalize on public dissatisfaction with the current administration.

Obama will draw distinctions between what he offers and what McCain offers. To that end, Obama will talk tonight about judgment over experience. It's the sword of choice he will use to attack McCain, whether on Iraq, the economy, taxes and energy and a host of Bush policies.

There will be some red meat in the speech about McCain's ties to oil and big business lobbyists and antiunion votes, for sure, but Obama will also try to better define what he stands for. That means explaining his domestic policies without getting so detailed that he bores or loses the audience at home. He'll talk especially about his plan for further tax cuts for the middle class, paid for by ending a permanent continuation of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest -- a populist and strategic voter-rich message there. He'll also push his plan to invest in alternative energy as a way to both wean the country from foreign oil and create millions of new jobs.

While the crowd before him will be wildly enthusiastic, his real audience will be the crucial group of independents and middle-class moderates tuning in. He'll try to reassure them that his vision of change is not political or national upheaval, but rather practical, pragmatic goals that can be achieved through a constructive relationship with Congress and the states on middle-class concerns on energy, college costs, health care and worker rights.

He'll pick up on Hillary Clinton's theme that the campaigning isn't about any one candidate but about the American people and the need to reverse the course of the past eight years. And he'll use Biden's point that Americans don't have to accept a status quo that is no longer bearable.

Obama's qualifications for the highest office in the land are still a question mark for many Americans, and Republicans will keep striking at that Achilles' heel, arguing he is not ready for the job -- that lofty rhetoric is not the primary qualification to be president in a world full of national security dangers and other immense challenges, especially given Obama's short record in public service.

Obama will also talk of enduring family values, picking up on Michelle Obama's very personal convention address Monday night. He'll profess his Christianity, possibly quoting the gospels, while urging religious tolerance and finding strength in religious diversity.

Obama will speak to patriotism as public service, in the military and elsewhere, calling for a new spirit of national and community service involvement. And he'll honor military service, especially pledging better treatment of veterans, better than McCain has a record on, or so Obama will say.

A hugely magnanimous gesture of thanks to Hillary Clinton is also in store tonight, when he'll say his cause is made better by her own historic quest for the nomination. To Clinton supporters, he'll acknowledge their devotion to her and say he shares many of the same policy goals.

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