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A different agenda
August 29, 2008
Since the late 1960s, Democrats -- aside from the aberration of Bill Clinton, a supremely talented politician and orator in his own right -- are often denigrated as naive and socialist, the party that wants the government to fix all problems.
But where that earlier generation of liberals failed with its reliance on entitlement programmes and big government, Obama laid forth a different agenda last night, one grounded partly in empathy and partly in hard-nosed pragmatism.
Obama's speech featured three main components: social issues like healthcare and education, the turbulent economy and national security/foreign policy. In order to drive home his point on each of these topics, he blasted John McCain and George W Bush, laid out specific policies he intends to pursue if elected President and provided biographical nuggets to illustrate his ability to fully comprehend each issue.
External Link: Video: Watch Obama's speech
A slickly produced biopic preceded Obama's speech, one that traced his journey as the only son of a black Kenyan and a white woman from Kansas, through a childhood in Hawaii where he was brought up by his single mother and maternal grandparents, to the community activism in Chicago's rough South Side, past graduation from Harvard Law School till becoming the family man and national level politician he is today.
It's reported that up to 90,000 people jammed into Invesco Field, where the speech was moved from the smaller, nearby Pepsi Centre to accommodate the crowd, to hear the most anticipated address by a US politician in years. And Barack did not disappoint.
Image: Barack Obama with wife Michelle, running mate Joe Biden and his wife Jill
Also read: 'With Obama what you see is what you get'
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