DENVER — “If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint
your opponent as someone people should run from,” Barack Obama
declared last night.
Talk about projection.
Accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination before
a crowd of roughly 80,000, Obama made a forceful case for change by
arguing that the United States is far worse off at home and abroad
than it was eight years ago and therefore, the nation must adopt
new policies — his polices.
Over the course of the speech, Obama attacked John McCain for
being too much like President Bush.
“The record is clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush
ninety percent of the time,” Obama said.
He portrayed McCain as being out of touch with the plight of
average Americans.
“It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care,” Obama said. “It’s
because John McCain doesn’t get it.”
He criticized McCain for not doing more to reduce America’s
dependence on foreign oil.
“Washington’s been talking about our oil addiction for the last
thirty years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them…”
Obama told the crowd. “And today, we import triple the amount of
oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.”
Even though Obama suggested that McCain has been in Washington
too long, he chose Joe Biden as his running mate, who has been
there far longer.
Obama also blasted McCain for being all bluster.
“If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk
and bad strategy, that’s his choice — but it is not the change we
need,” Obama said.
While Obama launched an all-out assault on McCain and called for
change, his nearly 4,700-word speech included just 79 words that
could even vaguely be construed as him pointing to a record of
actually bringing about change.
“I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is
coming,” Obama forecasted, dipping into his vast reservoir of
inexperience. “Because I’ve seen it. Because I’ve lived it. I’ve
seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children
and moved more families from welfare to work. I’ve seen it in
Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government
and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our
veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.”
Not only did Obama find little to say about his actual record,
but in order to inoculate himself from accusations of
embellishment, he had to qualify his statement by speaking of
himself as a passive observer (“I’ve seen it”) and collectivizing
the achievements (“we worked”).
With this speech, it has now become abundantly clear that Obama
won’t make a serious attempt to argue that he has any real
accomplishments. Instead, his campaign is banking on the fact that
the desire for change is so deep, and the contempt for President
Bush so fierce, that merely linking McCain to the administration
and representing something different will be enough to put Obama
over the top.
He could be right. As weak as a candidate as John Kerry was in
2004, he came just 18 electoral votes shy of becoming president at
a time when the Republican brand name was in much better shape than
it is now.
Obama was able to ride the change theme to victory in the
Democratic primaries, even though he started out as the heavy
underdog, so he has no reason to believe that it won’t work for him
in the general election.
But next week, Republicans will have an opportunity to fight
back, and they will have plenty of material. Unlike Obama, McCain
does have a record to run on.
