Obama's amazing speech

I confess to being blown away by Obama's speech. (The text of the speech is here.) I went into it being skeptical, especially when his delivery in the beginning was less than smooth (he seemed like he was just reading somebody else's words at some points). But he got into the swing of it, and delivered a powerful message.

That message was a challenging one. That's exactly what Americans want to hear. Whites know that things aren't right in the country on race, and certainly blacks know it. But charges of racism make the situation stagnant, providing the quick and easy reason but stifling all debate, and creating a situation where more resources are expended defending against this charge than doing anything to make the situation better. Obama is offering himself as an answer to all this.

He did it in a way that was politically savvy to the extreme. He emphasized his black background and his support for his pastor, shoring up the black vote but doing it in a way that whites can appreciate, and also emphasizing his white background. He did not dwell on his own background, though, such that the speech would be all about him.

He also emphasized the need for dialog on race and unity in a common purpose, which are both missing. But this provided the context to condemn the divisive politics of the past, in which we can all read "Clinton." Brilliant.

Obama might have won the nomination today.