The man behind the curtain

Here's an image from my friend Marcus, perfectly capturing the way things were.

Morning in America

During the 1984 US presidential campaign, Ronal Reagan released this now famous ad, Morning in America [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY]

In Obama's logo we ceaselessly see the new dawn that Reagan implied. Obama, seeing it for the first time, refused to clear it, saying it was "too corporate." He was persuaded otherwise. It is no accident that it looks like the sunrise, and it, early on in the campaign, gave us a sign that Obama wanted to reach into the red states and challenge the ingrained notion that elections are won or lost by a handful of states - mainly Florida and Ohio - and attempt the landslides that Reagan enjoyed. In 1980 Reagan won by 489 electoral votes against Carter's 49. In 1984 he won against Mondale 525 - 13! Considering Clinton beat Dole in 1996 379 - 159 and Bush beat Kerry 286 - 252, Reagan's victories point to a country unified. There are of course multiple reasons for this, but one of them was optimism - that Reaganesque quality - the idea that America's best days are ahead of them. This quality has been there from the very beginning with Obama. It is encapsulated perfectly in his logo.

The campaign teams Part 1: Ax

"David is the first among all equals" - Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the Democratic Caucus

David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief strategist. He is a journalist and an ad man, and it shows with Obama's campaign. From the logo (see above) to the slogan Change you can believe in, to the idea of staging the acceptance speech in a 80,000-seater stadium, Axelrod has shown a consistent talent for joining his candidate with the elements of selling ideas to people and doing things different enough to get a lot of press attention.

He differs from others in that he is interested in the authentic candidate, not changing the candidate to fit a model of what is perceived the voters want - as in Gore being told to shake off that stiffness and become the man of the people. A big part of his job is emphasis of one thing over the other - what to stress to the voters, and what not to say too. Obama was a community organizer for a few formative years and this has been used by Axelrod as the pivot of Obama's candidacy - more so than, say, Obama being the president of the Harvard Law Review (the first Black president) which there is no doubt pushed him into the echelons of power more than sweeping the floors and putting out the chairs for two years on Chicago's South Side.

In the formidable acceptance speech [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kv8eiDvrHJ4] Obama and his writers, with Axelrod in full agreement, coupled his story to the story of the folks he had met on the road (Obama's been on the road now for 20 months.) It sound like an easy thing to do, but its all in the writing, and political speeches fall or fly by the subtlest aspect. In one move, he sketched out his biography and that of his family, and he spoke up for those across the US who have been hit hard by the Bush administration. He also adjoined the people with the values set he knew a lot of the public were waiting to hear he held. Here is an extract:

"Because, in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill.

In the face of that young student, who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree, who once turned to food stamps, but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business or making her way in the world, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman.

She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight and that tonight is her night, as well.

Now, I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine.

These are my heroes; theirs are the stories that shaped my life. And it is on behalf of them that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States."

Thank you for comments

Just a quick note to say thank you for the comments, I've replied to a few and of course welcome more - to leave a comment, just click on 'comments' below and type away in the box provided - if you are not a member of blogger.com, just tick 'annonymous' and it should come through okay - leave your name in the body of the text if you like.

Time

"The biggest mistake I made was not being at my mother's bedside when she died. She was in Hawaii in a hospital, and we didn't know how fast it was going to take, and I didn't get there in time." - Barack Obama

It is unusual for a candidate to leave the campaign for 36 hours, but perfectly understandable for Obama to do just that at the end of this week, to visit his grandmother in Hawaii. The Obama campaign says she is "gravely ill" and Obama's decision to suspend campaigning tells us how grave the situation is. Obama's maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, is 85. She and her husband bought Obama up during those crucial adolescent years. He moved from Indonesia to Hawaii to live with them when he was 10, and stayed until he left for college. The man he is is due to a large extent on the woman she is. Obama has spoken many times of his mother teaching him about empathy. For probably the best news report I have read about the campaign, see the New York Times piece on Obama's mother here. [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14obama.html]

The world has turned upside down

Check out this picture from an XBox 360 computer game, Burnout Paradise. Obama is advertising in this game! This is what $600 million says. It enables the campaign to reach out in ways we have never thought possible. Imagine David Cameron turning up on a billboard of a football game! Its not only possible for Obama to do this financially, but also culturally - it is not being scoffed at, it is being accepted as a logical continuation of his appeal to young voters.

Analysis - Even if he loses, he’s won: Part 1

Accentuate the positive

This is the first of a series analysing how Obama, in four years, changed the global political landscape.

Obama knows how to campaign. His campaign’s professional, work-harder-than-everybody-else attitude has shone a light onto competing campaigns that have seemed amateurish and petty in comparison. One of the key elements to his success is the motivation of his supporters. This is based on the mutually beneficial relationship his supporters have with the campaign and the candidate himself.

Ten months ago, in December 2007, Obama was on the ropes, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. He had already created a large grassroots movement through his website, and crucially they were talking to each other, at a time when, as Deepak Chopra said, the only people supporting Obama were either dreamers or intellectuals. (I could never quite decide which of those I would want to be more!) Obama’s supporters had their chant, and knew the Fired Up story [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rsLp59Bn9ng] that went with it, Obama was getting better at the debates and speeches, and he was keeping his cool, but there was a sense that he needed to do something to change the dynamic. He then gave this speech [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tydfsfSQiYc] at the Jefferson Jackson dinner at Iowa (the first Democrat primary.) This tub-thumper did what it had to do – it pumped up the activists on the ground, leading to the Iowa Get Out The Vote effort which propelled Obama into first place. Winning in Iowa – or, more importantly, the way he won - showed that his candidacy was not a pipe dream or an air balloon – he wasn’t testing the water, he was going to fight hard for the nomination. A string of positives continued; the Yes We Can speech, [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe751kMBwms] the $55 million raised in February, the iconic images – like the Newsweek cover above - and his insistence that "your voice can change the world." These moments were used by the campaign and the supporters, feeding off each other; the campaign picks up on the enthusiasm, packages it up and sends it back out to them - this video is a good example. [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AmUUYo9o9eg]

It was not all smooth sailing of course; the Yes We Can speech came after his failure to clinch the New Hampshire primary and the race speech came after Reverend Wright’s stupid remarks. Every time Obama is on the ropes without fuss he directly addresses the issue, and he asks his supporters to do the same.

Each of these elements allow Obama’s supporters to feel as if they own the campaign, a feeling rooted firmly in reality; without their money, their knocking on doors, their phone calls, their caucusing and getting out the vote Hillary would be the nominee. Obama asked for their active participation in his candidacy and in return the campaign constructed itself around them – they got in on the ground floor at a mass movement, with its own aesthetic, its own cast and supporting cast, its own songs, its own stories, its own superstitions. It was widespread and open to satire, critique and jealousy. On March 2nd, in response to criticism of the motivated Obama crowds, Denise from Saratosa, Florida said; “If it comes across as cult-like, then the cult is called America.”

Obama has changed presidential politics for ever; even if he loses, he’s won. He has reconnected, in a tangible way, the offices and kitchens and beauty parlours and school yards to the highest office in the land. His biography has flattened the distance from the street to the Avenue, but his campaigning never forgot that the presidency taps into the American psyche for big events, for being a part of something you believe in. Only in the last two months, a week before the Democratic National Congress did Obama’s slogan change from Change we can believe in to For the change we need.

While watching the astonishing firework display at the end of Obama’s outdoor acceptance speech (seeing the upbeat and positive message in the stagecraft of the fireworks, an MSNBC commentator noticed how the fireworks were going up, as opposed to the usual end-of-speech balloons, that fall down) millions of viewers loved the spectacle, and asked “when, if not now, will we ever see this in politics again?” It is an indisputable fact that the US presidency is more important than, say the Beijing Olympics. If they can have their celebration, why can’t we have ours? Yes I am very attracted to the spectacle, partly due to the sheer unBritish over-the-topness of it, but also because Obama’s nomination is historic, and that night was imbued with historic and symbolic significance. The moment needed to be marked by a first. The speech and subsequent fireworks sparked off a night of celebration, pause and remembrance across the world. His supporters knew that they were a part of this, an indispensable part of the primaries like never before, and that the night belonged to them too. They remembered how far the US has come, and perhaps for the first time they allowed ourselves to imagine Obama delivering his next big speech, on election night, as President-Elect.

Only in America

After Obama's rallies and gatherings, his sound guy usually plays this excellent classic from Stevie Wonder [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XfkXEp5Pj6I&feature=related] including the great lyrics

Here I am baby
Oh, you've got the future in your hand
(signed, sealed delivered, Im yours)

But recently, presumably to appeal to voters who only think of Stevie Wonder when making jokes about blind people, Obama has been shaking hands on the ropeline to 'Only In America' a sickmaking little country dittie by two Texan flopperinos named Brooks and Dunn. Great name. This song (the mirror of which we in Britain could never imagine Gordon Brown playing) is strangly addictive and catchy, and drips of sentiment.

In a sub-John 'Cougar' Meloncamp way, Brooks and Dunn have captured the essence of the American dream by sketching out a few kids' futures:

One kid dreams of fame and fortune
One kid helps pay the rent
One could end up going to prison
One just might be president

Ah, ya see - just like Barack! He's gonna be president and this song is about that too! Duh!

The song is here [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QLILrC7Y5L4]

Why Powell Decided

Colin Powell talked yesterday on Meet The Press [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo_WZi0eV1U] about one of the ugliest sides to this ugly election - the continual unabashed discrimination against Muslims and Arab-Americans. That idiot woman who said "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab" the other week was vocalizing the inner thoughts of a mass of people who have read emails falsely claiming Obama is Muslim. Its a confusion that McCain is happy to go along with, and didn't for instance say at that gathering "He's a Christian."

Powell, who said he has watched and waited and decided on the basis of who performed best over a number of criteria, also spoke of the life and death of a man who no doubt would have been jeered at and threatned by the myopic knucklers that turn up to McCain and Palin's rallies.

He was speaking about Karim Rashad Sultan Kahn, a man who lived his life in a way that would confuse the knucklers;

Powell: "I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery. And she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star; showed that he died in Iraq; gave his date of birth, date of death. He was twenty years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Kahn. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey, he was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he could go serve his country and he gave his life."

Al Giordano has the entire trascript over at The Field [http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/]

Colin Powel (pron. Co-w-lin Po-wl)

Today the big news is Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama on Meet the Press. His endorsement matters, as he is still much resopected in the US, and he of courase was high up in the first Bush Administration.

Its worth noting that Colin Powell lost a great deal of respect internationally on Feb 5th 2003, during his fantasy-fuelled presentation to the UN, trying to convince the international community of WMD in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Here he is in the photo above with a model vial of anthrax. Here is a link to video of Powell at the UN. [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZKoSDazgf4&feature=related]

Why it matters is that Powell will garner positive media attention for Obama in the next 2-3 datys , eating into McCain's window to shake things up.