America is ready for an orator again

Sen­a­tor Barack Obama
Orig­i­nally uploaded by Stephen Voss

I saw the “Yes We Can” video (in the “Fea­tured Video” box on the front page) for the first time a day or so after it hit the net. Until that point, I had passed on this elec­tion cycle’s rhetoric. After eight years of a declin­ing qual­ity of voice in our admin­is­tra­tion, I found lit­tle point in hitch­ing my atten­tion to pun­dits look­ing to tackle the cen­ter of Amer­i­can low-brow.

The video is a haunt­ing homage to Obama’s New Hamp­shire con­ces­sion speech which went largely uncov­ered by main­stream press. Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.am opens the piece in stark black and white. He’s famil­iar, but not house­hold. And when he opens his mouth, it’s not his voice that comes out.

It’s Obama’s.

More stars fol­low. I know most of them, but couldn’t tell you their names. The video doesn’t tell either, their voices added the Candidate’s own in celebrity anonymity. Twisted.

And it struck me, about half-way through, just how dif­fer­ent this cam­paign really is on all fronts. This cam­paign is led — in both camps — by can­di­dates not afraid of lan­guage, not hob­bled by words, not mys­ti­fied by rou­tine turns of phrase.

Sure, I’m enam­ored by Obama, but I was and Edwards fan from the start. What many saw as a sil­ver tongued char­la­tan I saw as con­fi­dence and com­po­sure under great pres­sure. How­ever you look at Edwards, the guy could talk.

Clin­ton has a way with words, too. She has an incred­i­ble abil­ity to turn from stern matri­arch to warm grand­mother, and show­cases this in her lan­guage. She talks of expe­ri­ence. But polls show peo­ple want change — and the fact that she’s the first woman to win a pres­i­den­tial pri­mary in … ahem … his­tory … isn’t quite enough. She doesn’t know how to turn all that experience-speak into lan­guage which con­cep­tu­al­izes change for America’s 5-head house­hold.

John McCain has a tough road ahead. From McCain’s cor­ner, how thrilling would it have been to run against another short, stocky, lock-jawed and brood­ing white guy in the gen­eral? No, he has to engage his own, con­vince the red line repub­li­cans that he’s not actu­ally a demo­c­rat, and some­how play nice to the cen­ter at the same time. What he has going for him in his lan­guage is his expe­ri­ence. He talks war. He talks for­eign pol­icy. Unfor­tu­nately, he talks other wars. He talks for­eign pol­icy from other gen­er­a­tions. He’s savvy with a teleprompter, but he’s tied to the role of Poppa Smurf to Clinton’s Grandma. To counter that appear­ance, crazy Pat Buchanan said on the Today Show this morn­ing that “If McCain wins, he’ll make Bush look like Ghandi.“

Both Rom­ney and Huck­abee share a gift of speech. Rom­ney is the story-teller, hang­ing his hat on all that the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion hasn’t accom­plished. Speak­ing in neg­a­tives is hard, and is the sources of many of the cur­rent president’s ver­bal flubs. But he’s so able at the mic that he can deliver ter­ri­ble news and still make you feel that you’re on a beach, being fanned by an island native hold­ing a left-over giant foam “Go Mitt” fin­ger.

Huck­abee goes for sta­tis­tics. And while his pen­chant for bul­let points com­mu­ni­cates a great nat­ural sense of logic and form, it will likely mat­ter lit­tle to the sleep­ing audi­ence.

But make a note of what you don’t see: oppor­tu­ni­ties to poke at inad­e­qua­cies of the com­mon. The cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion has had to tow a long line of spin around Bush Jr.‘s ver­bal guf­faws. ‘He’s com­mon man… just like aMER­i­cans’,” they’d say. That has become abun­dantly clear over the last eight years. I believe that many have come to the real­iza­tion that the office of the pres­i­dent of the United States is one for the best of Amer­ica, for a rep­re­sen­ta­tive who show­cases the traits to which we aspire.

This year, for the first time in a long, long time, it would appear that we have a real choice no mat­ter what color your vote.