WP: Obama Finds His Address
By David S. Broder
Sunday, December 23, 2007; Page B07
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Barack Obama has become a one-trick pony. But what a trick it is! The stump speech he has developed in the closing stages of the pre-Christmas campaign is a thing of beauty, a 40-minute oration delivered without notes that is powering his gains for the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the first primary here in New Hampshire five days later. The speech was introduced at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines more than a month ago, when Obama was still struggling for leverage against Clinton and Edwards in Iowa. It drew rave reviews from that big audience and from Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen, and Obama knew he had a winner....
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It is a helluva speech. Like some Beethoven symphonies, it starts on a rather calm and even lighthearted note....He segues to a standard riff about the importance of the coming election, quickly converting it into a pointed attack on Hillary Clinton, although he does not name her....Then Obama pays his respect to Edwards-style populism, ragging on a Washington where health care and energy legislation have been stymied for years by corporate lobbyists -- none of whom, he promises, will get the time of day from an Obama administration. Then he quickens the pulses of various Democratic constituencies, promising labor to raise the minimum wage each and every year; promising teachers generous salaries; and promising college students new help in paying tuition.
And finally, comes the peroration, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. on the "fierce urgency of now," in explaining why he can't patiently wait his turn to run for president....The closing anecdote is based on an incident at a rally in Greenwood, S.C., where, on a miserable morning, with a meager crowd, a single black woman in the audience first revived Obama's spirit by shouting out encouragement and then got everyone chanting, responsively, "Fired up!" "Ready to go!" As he tells the familiar story, Obama segues from a conversational tone to a shout and explains that the chant has now become his trademark and slogan. So, he tells his listeners, "I've got one thing to ask you. Are you FIRED UP? Are you READY TO GO? FIRED UP! READY TO GO!"
And then, as the shouting becomes almost too loud to bear, he adds the five words that capsulize his whole message and sends the voters scrambling back into their winter coats and streaming out the door: "Let's go change the world," Obama says. And it sounds as if he means it.
In every audience I have seen, there is a jolt of pure electric energy at those closing words. Tears stain some cheeks -- and some people look a little thunderstruck.
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