![]() Reading Michelle Obama’s book….she speaks about this pivotal speech, so I am watching to remind myself of that marvelous day when Barack Obama was introduced to America. I was reading Becoming and got to the part where Barack was asked to give the Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and I said to myself, let me go to Youtube and see what I missed back then! And in tears at how far our country has fallen by the actions of current occupant of the White House who is the absolute antithesis of this great man. Like others I came to watch this after listening to “Becoming” and am so moved by his words. My only sadness is that my father who watched this that night didn’t live long enough to see him become President. ![]() We was like Who is that? But by the time he was finished, I knew that wasn’t the last we heard from him. Tough job carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Unfortunately, this presidency has aged him 30 years in 8. President Obama was a great speaker even then, full of hope and promise. Great speech next to Gettysburg address & Martin Luther king I have a dream. Here is the speech he gave along with some comments and reviews: This was the speech that was to properly introduce the American public to him.Īs a speaker, Barack Obama has to be one of the most elegant and eloquent speakers since Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy. ![]() Though, if Kerry would have known just how popular, he may have made a different selection.Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterestīefore he became the US president, Barack Obama was a Senator from Illinois who came into the spotlight from his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech. For it was Kerry and his advisors who selected Obama for the 2004 convention keynote address, predicting the State Senator would give a compelling speech and become a popular, new face for the Democratic Party and his campaign. But let us not forget the original architect of this plan: John Kerry. Whatever future political success Obama achieves might very well spring directly from the ‘uncoordinated, coordinated’ media frenzy that occurred in the last week of July 2004. Indeed, Obama is currently polling second in (early) polls measuring Democratic support for their nominee in 2008. Perhaps the media was unaware of the power of their words, and the impatience of the American public-Democrats certainly did not want to wait until 2016 for their next star to shine. The Houston Chronicle wrote, “he may well end up the first black president of the United States.” A Boston Herald editorial paraphrased a line in Obama’s speech thusly: “that brighter day has a name and a year: President Obama, 2016.” Several journalists quickly began to make predictions about the fate of this not-yet elected Senator. Louis Post Dispatch), and “a rising Democratic star” ( Christian Science Monitor).Īll these accolades for a man that, even the Post Dispatch acknowledged, had just spoken to a Democratic convention audience (let alone Americans in general) that “knew little or nothing about him.” In The New Republic, Noam Scheiber projected Obama to be “a perennial possibility for a spot on a national Democratic ticket.”Īs journalistic deadlines approached that Tuesday night, reporters wrote as one, marching to the beat of the same drummer: Obama was a “rising star” ( Star Tribune), “one of the Democrats’ fastest rising stars” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), a “budding political star” ( St. The New Orleans Times-Picayune referenced Obama’s “debut star turn,” and labled him as “someone already being talked about for a future national ticket.” Perhaps the media did not quite realize at the time that Obama, and a significant wing of the Democratic base, would take their words so seriously, as, less than two years after being elected Senator, Obama is now viewed as a threat to win the Democratic nomination.Īfter the speech, USA Today referred to Obama as an “emerging star” having “instantly established his credentials as a national political force.” Just minutes after the Illinois State Senator’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention on July 27, 2004, media commentators and journalists began to write history by casting Barack Obama in the role of superstar, Democratic leader, and future president of the United States.
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