From NBC/NJ’s Aswini Anburajan
MASON CITY, IA -- Obama will give a speech in Des Moines tomorrow that will provide a closing argument for why a junior senator from Illinois, with only two years of national experience should leapfrog over more experienced members of his own party to win the Democratic nomination and become president of the United States.
Today in Mason City, voters got a preview of that argument as Obama added new language and a rational for why he should be president to his stump speech.
Opening with the story of how he entered the race 10 months ago, channeling another senator from Illinois on the steps of the capitol building who had an announced a bid for the presidency more than a century ago, Obama said that the vision he'd sketched that day based on a few simple premises was now on the verge of becoming a reality.
"I had arrived on the national scene just a few years earlier, we knew that there was going to be potential institutional support going to other candidates, but the campaign was premised on a few simple beliefs, a belief in the core decency and generosity of spirit in American people. A belief that the American people were desperate for change," he said.
Going on to elaborate on the type of change the American people were looking for on both foreign and domestic priorities, Obama told the crowd, "We felt that we might be able to not just change political parties in the White House, but that we might be able to change our politics. That was our bet and now 10 months later that faith has been vindicated, 10 months later what people said couldn't be done, we might do."
Referencing an old cliché, Obama argued that his campaign had shaped the race, making the ability to bring change a key litmus test in choosing a candidate.
"So here's my point. Everybody now is talking about change. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then we're doing pretty good here because in the beginning of this campaign we said we were going to bring about change, we're going to do things differently and now everybody is talking about change," he said.
"But when you make a decision to caucus you have to ask yourself who's been about change their whole lives? Who's made the choices that would indicate their passion for working Americans, their hopes and their dreams?" Obama asked the audience before running through his biography, arguing that every time he faced a crossroads between power and money and working for a greater good, he chose the latter.
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"You have to ask yourself, who's talked the talk because that will be the measure of how seriously they take this stuff,” Obama said. “If they've been secretive in the past, they'll be secretive as president; if they haven't been all that strong on lobbyists in the past, doesn't matter what they say in the campaign, they won't be that strong about it when they are president. Because you only have a certain amount of political capital and things get tough. The question is who's willing to put even when it's not convenient, even when nobody's watching?"
Tomorrow's speech in Des Moines is expected to elaborate on the themes raised in Mason City today. Campaign staffers would not elaborate further, only to say that the speech would give a closing argument for why Obama can be the next president of the United States.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/26/534015.aspx
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