The candidate of cool has a cardinal mission when he accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for president before a cheering stadium crowd tonight.
Barack Obama has completed his arduous conquest of Democratic hearts; now he needs to reveal his own.
As Obama prepares to take the stage, Americans are telling pollsters two things. They are ready for change but unsure of the course he wants to steer. They don’t know what moves him, and they don’t know that he understands and cares about their lives.
“The country is in crisis,” said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. “They are looking for a Democratic Party and a Democratic Party leader who gets their crisis . . . who is waking up and every second of the day is focused on it. And who is going to battle to bring this economy back, to bring the middle class back.
“That is what they have got to see,” Greenberg said. “It is engagement. It is passion.”
Capturing voters’ allegiance
There was plenty of passion in the hall Wednesday night. The Democrats rode tides of often-conflicting emotions, as the first woman to almost win her party’s nomination moved to name its first African-American nominee by acclamation, and the first woman speaker of the House, with a swift and sure gavel, made it happen.
After the historic roll call, and choruses of “God Bless America,” two old hands at conveying their feelings — Bill Clinton and Joe Biden — stirred the Democrats.
Clinton was welcomed by a raucous ovation and chants of “Bill!” Each attempt he made to quiet the crowd only caused them to cheer more loudly.
There were heart-swelling tributes to American soldiers, with a video appearance from Mr. Everyman, actor Tom Hanks.
And then Biden was introduced by his son Beau, an Army captain who is preparing to embark with his unit to Iraq. He told how his father dealt with a terrible car accident in 1972 that killed the senator’s first wife and daughter.
Clinton and Biden have a talent for talking to middle-class and working families, conveying concern and securing their votes.
Biden quoted a chorus of questions he hears from economically hard- pressed middle-class Americans: “Should Mom move in with us now that Dad is gone? Fifty, sixty, seventy dollars to fill up the car?
“Winter’s coming — how are we going to pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now we owe more on the house than it’s worth — how are we going to send the kids to college?”
The more cerebral Obama has difficulty, polls show, capturing the allegiance of such Americans.
Obama “is not a populist,” Greenberg said. “It is not where he is, stylistically, authentically.” And people “don’t have a sense that they have got this plan of action that they will launch” immediately.
Biden “gets it more in his gut,” Greenberg added, and will help the ticket this fall. “It is Obama’s job. . . . He has to make the case.”
“He has to get angry”
James Carville was, with Greenberg and others, one of the band of Clinton advisers who led the Democrats back to power in 1992 in comparatively bleak economic times.
For the Democrats to triumph, Americans must know Obama and know that he cares, Carville said.
Obama’s “whole nature is he’s kind of a suave, kind of cool guy. . . . A lot of his demeanor is cool and calm,” Carville said. “He has to get angry.”
At the very least, Carville added, Obama has to let Americans know that “I know what is going on out there. . . . I may not exhibit some things, but it is killing me on the inside when I see what is happening.”
