This blog is supposed to be reserved for discussion of health care issues and by and large we stick to that. But that is not the story tonight. I am sitting here watching Barack give his speech tonight in Houston after winning Wisconsin. It is substantive and inspiring. It is specific and visionary. It lays out disagreement with the old way of doing things while reaching across the aisle and without demonizing. It is the best State of the Union address I’ve heard in 7 years.
Along the way he also subtly started to shift to looking at the general election in how he articulated his program and addressing John McCain as someone to be admired but who is part of the old failing policies. And by the way, if you saw McCain’s speech tonight, as a Democrat you have to be heartened. He sounded a bunch of tired themes and is just awful on the stump. Will people buy the old Republican platitudes anymore? On healthcare or anything else?
Hilary Clinton spoke as well of course and touched on many of the same themes. But there wasn’t the same unifying vision. There was a laundry list of stuff trying to show that she is substantive. But it is Barack’s new overlay on all of this that has it making sense to many more people now. He is providing the substance and the vision that people will follow.
And on health care . . . again Hilary tried to differentiate her plan by citing people that Barack is “leaving out” of his health care plan by not mandating coverage for everyone. But as Barack said, he wants to make coverage available and affordable to everyone. Isn’t that really what is important here? If that is the kind of “substance” that she is hanging her hat on to differentiate herself now, then she has big problems.
Take a look at Barack's speech from Houston tonight. What do you think?
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