Saturday, May 10, 2008

Revisiting Senator Obama's 2004 Democratic Convention keynote speech

Came across an article in Chicago Magazine on The [Other] Speech - Senator Obama's keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. The speech that set him on the path to his current candidacy for the White House. Rocketed him - literally overnight - from a little-known Illinois State Senator to the rock star today. And from being broke, dispirited and suffering the ignominy of a maxed-out credit card at the 2000 Democratic Convention, to the US Senate and possibly in a few months, the US Presidency.
The article itself talks about how that speech came about - the behind-the-scenes maneuvering and politics behind getting Senator Obama the keynote slot; how the speech was written and edited; his troubles during rehearsals; and some analysis of the speech itself - how Senator Obama started out a little flat, but something goes off in the middle of the speech, like a switch has been flipped.
About 4 minutes into the second video, comes a moment where Senator Obama really catches fire, IMHO. He starts swaying, almost dancing, as he talks about his core message and vision - about there not being a liberal America and a conservative America, but a United States of America... No red states and blue states, but a United States of America... Not a White America, or a Black America, or a Latino America, or an Asian America, but the United States of America.
And a new star was born.

The following videos were posted by OregonforObama:
Part 1:


Part 2:


Enjoy!

No comments: