Obama Gets It Too

After noting Mark Warner's "gets it" way of thinking last night, I was delighted to read this morning's post from Marshall Wittman at Bull Moose, which features some excellent comments from Illinois' Barack Obama. I've been meaning to do a post on Obama for a while now, and the Moose's thoughts provide a handy springboard.

I first heard of Obama when I read this profile of him in the New Yorker just over a year ago. His thoughts on the nasty nature of politics today appealed strongly to me: anyone who says things like "If you make political discourse sufficiently negative, more people will become cynical and stop paying attention. That leaves more space for special interests to pursue their agendas, and that’s how we end up with drug companies making drug policy, energy companies making energy policy, and multinationals making trade policy" gets an automatic second look, regardless of what letter they put after their name.

When I heard his speech from Boston at the Democrats' convention last July, I was absolutely hooked. By the time he finished, I had goosebumps. It was, by far, the highlight of the convention as far as I was concerned, and I had no doubt even then that he was going places. The next morning when I got into work, I made everyone watch the speech ... and they were just as taken as I had been (If you haven't watched it, you can do so here).

Of course Obama went on to crushing victory over the kooky Alan Keyes last November, and has acquitted himself tremendously in the Senate thus far. I have been impressed with his conduct during the Foreign Relations Committee's hearings on Bolton, and for his willingness to go toe-to-toe with members much senior than himself to get his point across. He does it graciously and honestly, and watching him work and speak is a treat compared with most of his colleagues.

Obama featured recently in a story in The Hill, when he happened to be talking with his colleague John McCain near some elevators with reporters nearby. The reporters starting asking McCain (for the six trillionth time) whether he's running for president, and McCain clutched Obama's arm "and ducked into the elevator, introducing Obama as 'my new campaign manager.'"

Yesterday, before receiving an award (along with McCain) from the MTV youth-voting advocacy group Rock the Vote, Obama commented on Howard Dean's recent remarks:

"'As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat,' Obama said. 'I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us,' Obama explained."

I hope Dean listens. And I hope Obama keeps his nose to the grindstone and doesn't do anything to tarnish his bright future on the American political scene.