We saw Michelle Obama speak in San Jose last night. To call it electrifying would be an understatement. It was completely amazing, and sent me home fired up (ready to go). Of course, I've never gone to any kind of rally like that before. But even old pros, like Andrew Rosenthal, have been bowled over. Here's what he wrote in today's New York Times about yesterday's Obama rally in Los Angeles.
Forty-eight hours before the closest thing America has ever had to a national primary, four extraordinary women put on the best campaign rally I’ve seen in 20 years of covering presidential politics.
(snipped)
The crowd was screaming with delight when it saw Ms. Kennedy, who brought her uncle Senator Edward Kennedy and now, remarkably, her cousin Ms. Shriver, wife of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, into the Obama campaign.
Ms. Kennedy previewed Ms. Shriver’s surprising appearance by urging Democrats to “step out of your lives and into this moment in history.”
Ms. Winfrey — finally — spoke to the most emotionally fraught aspect of this contest. “Now look at this campaign: the two front-runners are a black man and a woman,” she said. “What that says to me is we have won the struggle and we have the right to compete.”
Instead of seeing a painful choice, voters, Ms. Winfrey urged, should see a moment when they “are free from the constraints of gender and race.”
After watching the candidates struggle with the issue, painfully and awkwardly, in the past month, it was a relief to hear someone finally frame it in a way that celebrated what the Democratic Party has achieved — and then move beyond it.
Ms. Kennedy and Ms. Winfrey have more star power than pretty much anyone in this country. But it was Mrs. Obama who presented the challenge to Mrs. Clinton. Speaking without a script, wandering the stage and pumping her arms, she was intellectually powerful, even fierce at times, in making her political arguments and did not hesitate to jab at the Clintons’ legacy. “In my lifetime,” she said, “through Republican and Democratic administrations, it hasn’t got better for ordinary folks.”
But she also allowed herself to offer the full-throated praise of her husband that she avoided in earlier stages of the campaign. She spoke about his character, about his ability to lead, and aimed squarely at the criticism that his résumé is too thin.
When you finish reading that, you should head over to Leonard's and read why he's voting for Barack Obama
