Obama live in Philly

One of my favorite albums of all time is David Bowie's live album recorded in Philadelphia. It does a lot of things, but its most visible achievement is the way it transitions Bowie from the fascinating cult figure he was on Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, to the accomplished entertainer he had become and would more visibly be on Young Americans and Station to Station.

Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia today does a lot of things, but at least 5 worth mentioning:

1. The point, about halfway through, where he turns from talking about anger in the black community to talk about white anger toward affirmative action and African American crime, is brilliant. It takes the field away from Hillary, at least for the moment. It is Obama saying: I feel your pain. It says: If you are looking for a candidate who gets it, and wants to find sustainable solutions that won’t be taken away in the next election cycle, then vote for me. As a side thought: One thing that undermines Hillary’s claims, for me, or anyone who cares about sustainable solutions, is that almost everything that Bill Clinton achieved was swept aside by the Bush administration. That’s why change is better than small victories achieved through hand-to-hand legislative combat. Change persists (paradoxically) while legislation is overturned.

2. He makes a case that change is essential to the American experience, and far from dismissing it, we need to appreciate its transformative role in our history. More essentially, he overturns the idea that Hillary has been trying to communicate—that we shouldn’t be seduced by talk about change. Change, in her rhetoric, is substance-less. She positions “solutions” as the opposite of change—in the language of her campaign, you can work for solutions or hope for change. But here, Obama makes the case that change IS hard, that it takes effort and focus. Here he communicates, in a way more concrete than ever before, that change requires sustained work, it requires us to build coalitions and set aside biases and preassumptions, and it requires work in our communities and new public policy, to rebuild schools, and provide health care, and assure jobs that pay a decent wage. Hillary thinks elected officials fight out our battles over public policies, in contests between (and within) Congress and the White House. But, upon closer scrutiny, her “solutions” are handed to us. For Obama, change requires this, but also much, much more—we need to come together and rethink what we want and what we believe. His vision is actually much more effortful than hers. Change isn’t a lazy hope for those unwilling to do the work, it is the product of cumulative labor, of sustained and coordinated effort.

3. Obama, in a similar way, asserts that talking about issues is important. Toward the end of the speech he succeeds in characterizing this campaign as a chance to talk “about the crumbling schools” and the corrosive effects of profit-driven decisions to close down factories and ship jobs overseas. Far from being insignificant, which is what Hillary has claimed, talking about things matters. That’s how things get on our agenda, that’s how we organize our common effort, and see where our points of common concern are. Hillary doesn’t need talk. She knows what we need. For her, talking gets in the way of getting things done.

4.Obama talks about his religion and should, now, at least, be able to set aside the insidious campaign to position him as a Manchurian candidate, a secret muslim, serving as an agent of Islamic extremism.

5.Although my friend Scott, who has been working and fund-raising for Obama (thanks Scott!) isn't buying it, I see more evidence here to support my argument that Obama is proposing a paradigm-shifting (not incrementalist) approach to policy and governance. This speech clearly makes the case for a meaningful reengineering of some central paradigms that guide our thinking about federalism, corporate responsibility, and our shared obligations to vulnerable populations. Who is responsible for failing schools? Not local communities, but all of us (locating, I think, the solution firmly at the federal level). Why do companies ship jobs overseas? For, as Obama describes it, “nothing more than a profit.” This suggests that there are things that matter more than profit and, presumably, there will be some effort, again at the federal level, to make corporations consider the externalities of their decisions. And what do we do about vulnerable populations, those families that are “standing permanently up to (their) neck in water, so that even a ripple is sufficient to drown” them? It isn’t just about repairing the social safety net, or pushing people into work, as the Clinton welfare reforms did. We need to get at root causes. “A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family....And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement.” This all helps “create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.” This echoes the 1965 Moynihan Report, which said: “So long as this situation persists, the cycle of poverty and disadvantage will continue to repeat itself.” And, like Moynihan, the unmistakable conclusion is that we need “A national effort...that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area.” This is how we eradicate poverty, and all the social externalities that come with it.

When we ask our two-year-old son Jonah who our next president will be, he says: “Barack O-BAMA.” Today I feel more confident that he’s right.