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Barack Obama's quiet rebellion
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Candidate
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| Contributor | mtrz |
| Last Edited | mtrz May 30, 2007 06:04pm |
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| Category | Commentary |
| News Date | Thursday, May 31, 2007 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | May 30, 2007 | HANOVER, N.H. -- It was a movie director's idea of how to choreograph a political event. Begin with a sun-splendid Memorial Day afternoon. Add a pastoral Ivy League campus and a youthful crowd of about 5,000 would-be converts staring eagerly at the stage. Finish with a new-generation presidential candidate in a crisp white shirt, his sleeves rolled up, radiating coiled charisma.
At Dartmouth College Monday, Barack Obama had reached the practiced moment in his stump speech when he explains the Kenyan origins of his "funny name." Hearing this now-familiar story, a group of Kenyan students cheered lustily. "But my mother is from Kansas," Obama added. "Is anyone here from Kansas?"
Near silence. Finally, reflecting on his dual heritage, Obama said, "Kansans are a little less demonstrative than Kenyans are."
The Dartmouth rally came at the end of Obama's two-day tour of the North Country of New Hampshire, an area that easily fulfills every tourist-brochure fantasy of how small-town New England is supposed to look. The expectations for the Obama campaign, seven months before the New Hampshire primary, are a bit more daunting. The unanswerable question is whether this fledgling senator -- who has risen faster and higher from a single convention speech than any Democrat since William Jennings Bryan in 1896 -- can redeem the oversize hopes that so many have placed in his historic candidacy.
No would-be president can be fully judged from his appearances on the campaign trail. Such public moments do convey, however, the essence of the persona that the candidate is offering the voters. What leaps out watching Obama is that he often is as understated as a stereotypical Kansan. In situations where most Democrats would resort to heart-on-the-sleeve emotionalism, Obama is a portrait of thoughtful reticence.
In political terms, this campaign will test whether the Democratic voters will pick a nominee who waxes cool while his major rivals (certainly John |
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