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Obama delivers

Barack Obama did something more than establish his leadership credentials while accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 2008 presidential election at Denver. He offered a powerful reminder that governments should cater to the mass of the people and not the privileged few. Such an eloquent affirmation of the virtues of liberalism, in domestic as well as international affairs, was badly needed in a world that has been dominated and mangled by the forces of conservativism for the last two or three decades. During much of this period, liberals and progressives in the United States were unable to demolish the false propaganda that they were unpatriotic panderers to the irresponsible and the deviant. As a result, too many middle and working class Americans tended to vote Republican even when they were aware that it was against their own interests. During George Bush’s two terms as President, employment and median income have dipped to levels lower than they were when Bill Clinton was in the White House. However, in the last two presidential elections, the Democrats stuck with the Clintonian strategy of tacking some conservative planks on to their basic platform. In pointing to the need for individual responsibility, Mr. Obama distanced himself from excessive liberalism. But he also asserted unequivocally that the responsibility citizens bear towards one another could be fulfilled only when governments stepped in to perform the tasks individuals could not do for themselves.

Soaring rhetoric has been Mr. Obama’s forte. The question in Denver was whether the Democratic nominee could infuse the broad picture with substantive details. He appears to have done just that by proposing specific policy measures on a range of topics from educational reform to energy security. The Democratic standard-bearer’s lead in the public opinion polls declined worryingly over the past several weeks, with the Republicans quite successfully recasting the coming electoral battle as a referendum on his lack of experience. The audience in Denver was more than satisfied when Mr. Obama went on the offensive and linked John McCain, the presumptive nominee of the Grand Old Party, to the disastrous policies of the Bush administration. With the Clinton couple rising to the occasion by powerfully endorsing their party’s candidate, Mr. Obama has a fair chance of connecting to white blue collar workers who have so far been largely immune to his charms. Whether he goes to the White House or not, it was a poignantly historic moment when an African-American became a major party nominee exactly 45 years after Martin Luther King delivered “I have a dream,” one of history’s great orations.

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