"Cynicism is a sorry wisdom."

Photo courtesy of Michelle Stocker, The Capital Times

Section 311, seat 17.

For those who don't know, that is the last row on the third tier of seats at Madison's 17,000 seat Kohl Center. Nosebleed section. From the picture above, go towards the upper left-hand corner of your monitor, then twelve inches further, and that's where I was last night.

I left Columbus at 5:45 p.m. and passed thousands of well-wrapped penguins shuffling towards the center around 6:30. Found a $5 parking spot (Thank God I grabbed that bag of quarters from the kitchen!) at the top of a nearby ramp that supported me as an undergrad back in 1985 ($3.10/hour).

I joined the penguins--Man, it was slippery out there!--and waited another 45 minutes in the snow and 15 degrees to get in, waiting all the while for them to declare they were at capacity. They would reach it shortly after I entered. 2000 additional supporters were herded to an adjacent pavilion to watch via monitor, while the rest were presumably turned away to shuffle back to their respective igloos.

It's been a long time since I've been in a stadium full of (sober) university students. That may have been the most enjoyable part of the evening. I got reacquainted with the wave, the "slo-mo" wave, and the supersonic wave. Too bad they banned beach balls or we REALLY would have had that place rockin'. The eclectic choice of music didn't hurt, either--though we could have done without the one country song they threw in for the rednecks. (I know, I know, rednecks vote too. But they never punch their chads all the way through.)

We waited patiently as Obama's UW campaign dude gave his overly-starched speech, then again as his regional something-or-other led us in lame cheers of "Fired up!" and "Ready to go!" (By that time, I was truly "ready to go," but feared losing my seat if I scrambled for the bathroom.) I felt my age showing when I grew upset that the young regional guy wore faded jeans under his suit coat. I know you're pushing the "youth" movement, but this is a possible president you're introducing. Couldn't you have found an old pair of Dockers in the back of your closet?

After being entertained by Obama's new music video by Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, we were greeted by Guvna Jim Doyle (whose senior picture, I'd like to point out, is in the yearbook right next to my dad), who looked very bald from my altitude. Yeah--my dad has more hair than our governor. So there.

Several more minutes lapsed as the Secret Service checked, double-checked, and triple-checked the stage for stink bombs and whoopee cushions. I noticed at least one pacing the upper rafters of the stadium, but no sniper rifle, which was a little anti-climactic. Still, it was starting to feel a little like a taping of a "24" episode. City cops were scattered here and there, but they all looked puny and ill-equipped from my vantage point. I don't care if Obama has to travel in a pope-mobile--I don't want anything happening to this guy now that we've found him.

And then, finally, the man himself. He took a while getting to the podium as he stopped to shake hands and exchange contagious illnesses with every runny-nosed supporter that started lining up outside the Kohl Center last fall to be right up front.


WI Gov. Jim Doyle and IL Senator Barack Obama
Photo courtesy of Michelle Stocker, The Capital Times

Let me just say: He looked mighty sharp. I know--irrelevant. But damn!

We soaked in 25 minutes of Obama's booming voice, and I thought it was very telling that the loudest outburst was when he started a sentence by saying, "George Bush will not be on the ballot in November..." and the place went wild. You would have thought it was the first time we'd learned this. I guess we all assumed by now that W had figured out a way to get the Supreme Court to re-appoint him.

Anyway, it underlined to me that--as talented and promising as Obama is as an individual--we are SO disheartened by 7.5 years of Bush-shit politics that we are absolutely starving for change. The mere reminder that, no matter what else may happen, Bush will be GONE soon, was almost more than we could bear. I do believe tears were shed.

If was all over before it began, of course. Obama was shaking hands and slapping backs on his way out, which most of us watched from monitors as we made our way to the chutes we worked so hard to get into just a few hours before.

As I filed out with the rest of the cattle, I gathered the adjectives that best summed up the Senator after my brief, and only, encounter with him:

Confident. Articulate. Determined. Focused. Bold. Humble. Thankful. Thunderous. Soft-spoken. Charged. Relaxed.

Ready.

I also got the distinct impression that he is an exceptionately good speller, which I find critical in any presidential contest. That is, as long as we don't ask him to spell (or pronounce, bless his heart) the last name of Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. Every man has his limits.


Photo courtesy of Michelle Stocker, The Capital Times

Here are last night's remarks, as prepared for delivery, courtesy of my friend Stephanie from Texas. Apparently he ad-libbed "Cynicism is a sorry wisdom," but it stuck with me immediately. Maybe I'm just hearing voices, again...

"Today, the change we seek swept through the Chesapeake and over the Potomac. We won the state of Maryland. We won the Commonwealth of Virginia. And though we won in Washington D.C., this movement won’t stop until there’s change in Washington. And tonight, we’re on our way.

"But we know how much farther we have to go. We know it takes more than one night – or even one election – to overcome decades of money and the influence; bitter partisanship and petty bickering that’s shut you out, let you down and told you to settle.

"We know our road will not be easy. But we also know that at this moment the cynics can no longer say our hope is false. We have now won east and west, north and south, and across the heartland of this country we love. We have given young people a reason to believe, and brought folks back to the polls who want to believe again. And we are bringing together Democrats and Independents and Republicans; blacks and whites; Latinos and Asians; small states and big states; Red States and Blue States into a United States of America.

"This is the new American majority. This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up. And in this election, your voices will be heard. Because at a time when so many people are struggling to keep up with soaring costs in a sluggish economy, we know that the status quo in Washington just won’t do. Not this time. Not this year. We can’t keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result – because it’s a game that ordinary Americans are losing.

"It’s a game where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits, while you pay the price at the pump, and our planet is put at risk. That’s what happens when lobbyists set the agenda, and that’s why they won’t drown out your voices anymore when I am President of the United States of America

"It’s a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That’s what happens when the American worker doesn’t have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment, and that’s why we need a President who will listen to Main Street – not just Wall Street; a President who will stand with workers not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard

"It’s a game where Democrats and Republicans fail to come together year after year after year, while another mother goes without health care for her sick child. That’s why we have to put an end to the division and distraction in Washington, so that we can unite this nation around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

"It’s a game where the only way for Democrats to look tough on national security is by talking, and acting and voting like Bush-McCain Republicans, while our troops are sent to fight tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and should’ve never been waged. That’s what happens when we use 9/11 to scare up votes, and that’s why we need to do more than end a war – we need to end the mindset that got us into war.

"That’s the choice in this primary. It’s about whether we choose to play the game, or whether we choose to end it; it’s change that polls well, or change we can believe in; it’s the past versus the future. And when I’m the Democratic nominee for President – that will be the choice in November.

"John McCain is an American hero. We honor his service to our nation. But his priorities don’t address the real problems of the American people, because they are bound to the failed policies of the past.

"George Bush won’t be on the ballot this November, but his war and his tax cuts for the wealthy will. When I am the nominee, I will offer a clear choice.

"John McCain won’t be able to say that I ever supported this war in Iraq, because I opposed it from the beginning. Senator McCain said the other day that we might be mired for a hundred years in Iraq, which is reason enough to not give him four years in the White House.

"If we had chosen a different path, the right path, we could have finished the job in Afghanistan, and put more resources into the fight against bin Laden; and instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Baghdad, we could have put that money into our schools and hospitals, our road and bridges – and that’s what the American people need us to do right now.

"And I admired Senator McCain when he stood up and said that it offended his “conscience” to support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in a time of war; that he couldn’t support a tax cut where “so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate.” But somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight Talk Express lost its wheels, because now he’s all for them. Well I’m not. We can’t keep spending money that we don’t have in a war that we shouldn’t have fought. We can’t keep mortgaging our children’s future on a mountain of debt. We can’t keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace.

"It’s time to turn the page. We need a new direction in this country. Everywhere I go, I meet Americans who can’t wait another day for change. They’re not just showing up to hear a speech – they need to know that politics can make a difference in their lives, that it’s not too late to reclaim the American Dream.

"It’s a dream shared in big cities and small towns; across races, regions and religions – that if you work hard, you can support a family; that if you get sick, there will be health care you can afford; that you can retire with the dignity and security and respect that you have earned; that your kids can get a good education, and young people can go to college even if they’re not rich.

"That is our common hope. That is the American Dream.It’s the dream of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake at night wondering how he’s going to pay the bills. He needs us to restore fairness to our economy by putting a tax cut into the pockets of working people, and seniors, and struggling homeowners.It’s the dream of the woman who told me she works the night shift after a full day of college and still can’t afford health care for a sister who’s ill. She needs us to finally come together to make health care affordable and available for every American.

"It’s the dream of the senior I met who lost his pension when the company he gave his life to went bankrupt. He doesn’t need bankruptcy laws that protect banks and big lenders. He needs us to protect pensions, not CEO bonuses; and to do what it takes to make sure that the American people can count on Social Security today, tomorrow and forever.

"It’s the dream of the teacher who works at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet. She needs better pay, and more support, and the freedom to do more than just teach to the test. And if her students want to go on to college, they shouldn’t fear decades of debt.

"That’s why I’ll make college affordable with an annual $4,000 tax credit if you’re willing to do community service, or national service. We will invest in you, but we’ll ask you to invest in your country.

"That is our calling in this campaign. To reaffirm that fundamental belief – I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper – that makes us one people, and one nation. It’s time to stand up and reach for what’s possible, because together, people who love their country can change it.

"Now when I start talking like this, some folks tell me that I’ve got my head in the clouds. That I need a reality check. That we’re still offering false hope. But my own story tells me that in the United States of America, there has never been anything false about hope.

"I should not be here today. I was not born into money or status. I was born to a teenage mom in Hawaii, and my dad left us when I was two. But my family gave me love, they gave me education, and most of all they gave me hope – hope that in America, no dream is beyond our grasp if we reach for it, and fight for it, and work for it. Because hope is not blind optimism.

"I know how hard it will be to make these changes. I know this because I fought on the streets of Chicago as a community organizer to bring jobs to the jobless in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant. I’ve fought in the courts as a civil rights lawyer to make sure people weren’t denied their rights because of what they looked like or where they came from. I’ve fought in the legislature to take power away from lobbyists.

"I’ve won some of those fights, but I’ve lost some of them too. I’ve seen good legislation die because good intentions weren’t backed by a mandate for change. The politics of hope does not mean hoping things come easy. Because nothing worthwhile in this country has ever happened unless somebody, somewhere stood up when it was hard; stood up when they were told – no you can’t, and said yes we can.

"And where better to affirm our ideals than here in Wisconsin, where a century ago the progressive movement was born. It was rooted in the principle that the voices of the people can speak louder than special interests; that citizens can be connected to their government and to one another; and that all of us share a common destiny, an American Dream.

"Yes we can reclaim that dream. Yes we can heal this nation. The voices of the American people have carried us a great distance on this improbable journey, but we have much further to go.

"Now we carry our message to farms and factories across this state, and to the cities and small towns of Ohio, to the open plains deep in the heart of Texas, and all the way to Democratic National Convention in Denver; it’s the same message we had when we were up, and when were down; that out of many, we are one; that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; and that we can cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism because our dream will not be deferred; our future will not be denied; and our time for change has come.

"Please help us continue to build off of our success and grow this movement across the country. This campaign is fueled by all of us -- please donate and make your voice heard in this historic moment.

"Yes. We. Can."