Obama and McCain's Campaigns Are Worlds Apart

[FarCenter]

By Marc Pitzke New York

There is a massive difference between the two campaigns in the final week before the US presidential election. Obama sounds optimistic and presidential. McCain, with more and more people assuming he will lose, is just trying to hold on.


In the final dramatic days of the US presidential campaign Barack Obama is returning to the original theme that brought him his first success. The very mantra which was sacrificed for a more pragmatic tone as the race for the White House heated up. "Hope," he said in Ohio on Monday night, "Is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting around the bend."

The crowds ate it up. It was the first time in weeks that Obama did more than just talk about the issues at hand: the financial crisis, tax policy and a host of other political questions. Once again touched on that big principle of hope.

And so the circle is closed. Obama is now returning to the same lofty rhetoric that he started with 21 months ago in Springfield, the capital of his home state of Illinois. It is a rhetoric that provided early fuel to his campaign, but which also provided his critics with an open flank to attack. Many months have passed since then, during which he has had to learn that in tough times voters are not only moved by inspiration but also by concrete policy proposals.

But now, in the final stretch, Obama can afford to return to these big abstract messages: He has proven his economic competence -- for most Americans, one of the overriding reasons to vote for him. He has made people feel they know him. He has won the likeability contest.

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,587338,00.html

[ladjf]

1. "The low road and the high road". nt

[Idealism]

2. It may sound cliche

but hope is really all any of us has. Its the reason why people go to the same dead end job day in and day out, it prevents mass suicides for people who have failed at tasks in their life, and it gives everyone a reason to look forward to tommorow. Hope is possibly the best inherently good quality of human beings, as it allows us to push through rough patches with some optimism intact. It gives Obama a more humane quality to him, something that while undefinable, greatly adds to his ability to inspire people and get them to stand together to work towards lofty goals.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Nice post! Welcome to DU!

:hi: :toast:

[Idealism]

4. Thanks

glad to be here :)
you guys do a great job of being the most up to the minute breaking news, and it gives me somewhere to vent :)