Below The Beltway

Notwithstanding jokes earlier this week about Greek temples, the imagery couldn’t have been better. On television, it looked like Barack Obama was standing outside the Oval Office in the White House Rose Garden. In reality, he was standing on a football field before a crowd of 85,000 people accepting his parties nomination for President:

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) — Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama laid out his credentials to take on and beat Republican candidate John McCain in the fall election.

Obama compared himself to McCain on domestic and foreign policy in an impassioned speech before a cheering crowd at the Democratic National Convention Thursday.

“If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have,” he said.

He said he was able to lead the country into an era of change after what he called eight years of failed policies.

“America, we are better than these last eight years,” he told supporters at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night in Denver Colorado. “This moment, this election, is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.”

It was, I think, a very good speech, and I say that as someone who was thoroughly unimpressed with his appeals to big government and communitarian collectivism.  What made it good, though, wasn’t the substance, but what the fact that it most likely accomplished the one thing Barack Obama needed to do tonight — it made him look Presidential.

There were several themes that Obama touched on tonight that I’m sure we’ll see repeated as the campaign goes on, but the one that is likely to be the most effective is his explicit association of John McCain with George W. Bush, tied up in the line “Eight is enough.” Had it not been for the fact that he was speaking in an open air stadium before 85,000 people, I’m sure that the crowd would’ve been chanting that in unison, but there’s plenty of time for that. What’s important is the fact that McCain has a problem named George W. Bush, and if Obama and the Democrats can keep reminding voters of that, they just might win the election.

Another theme that I’m betting we’ll see repeated again is Obama’s response to Republican charges about his patriotism:

[W]hat I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America.

So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

The crowd, most of whom were waiving American flags, ate that line up. McCain isn’t going to question Barack Obama’s patriotism himself, of course, but I think it’s going to be hard for Republican attack dogs to do so and sound credible in the process.

And, finally, Obama ended the speech by evoking the memory of a man who spoke on this day 45 years ago:

[I]t is that promise that 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could’ve heard many things. They could’ve heard words of anger and discord. They could’ve been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead — people of every creed and color, from every walk of life — is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise — that American promise — and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

And that’s where it ended.

As I said, all in all, I think this will be seen as a very effective speech and one that is likely to give Obama’s campaign the boost that he no doubt wants.