The Speeches

I was at a gathering of people where tears were shed when the election was called for Obama, but the only time I really misted up all night was during McCain’s speech. It was a real What Could Have Been moment. His reference to Booker T. Washington near the start was both smart and classy, and this also stood out, later on:

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited. Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

Between the almost explicit retraction in that last line, and his visibly halfhearted attempt to talk about Ayers in the final debate, I think time will show that McCain was even more handcuffed by his party than we already believe. I’ve already heard leaks that he stood against several commercials emphasizing things like Rev. Wright. This doesn’t excuse some of what did get through in his campaign, in his name, but it was heartening to see and hear the McCain I’ve long respected on the last night of this long process.

As for Obama, I thought his speech was mostly terrific as well. Eloquence is definitely not the only quality needed in a president, but man, we’ve got a lot of it now. The substance of the speech was the mixture of optimism and realism that I’ve appreciated since the first time I heard him speak. I’m hoping that he appoints at least one Republican to his cabinet. I found this moment in his speech not just refreshing, but almost stunning, given that he had already praised McCain and was basically speaking from atop the carcass of the current GOP:

Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection."

Amen.