Bottom Line: I try my hand at writing, or at least modifying, an Obama speech. If I am actually modifying someone else’s speech modified by Obama (such as Deval Patrick), then I am hoping parody covers both. For people looking for equal time, I have serious criticisms of John McCain’s rhetoric here.
Up Date: Today Obama secured the frantic-parent vote and the youth vote when he noted his most famous rhetorical flourish was misunderstood. He actually said, “Wii are the change we have been waiting for.”
This promise of making the Nintendo gaming system, until lately hard to find, available filled his followers with joy. “Up to now Ebay gougers and plutocrats have hoarded Wii and kept them from young, often disabled kids who need them to compete in a global economy. In many houses Dads find themselves competing with their kids for the one Wii they could get. Can we get every home a Wii? Yes, we can!”
My try at Obama-ism:
Thank you, everyone.
(Insert ritual thanks to leading pooh-bahs here.)
Over American history, we have seen the people of America proclaim that our time for change has come. But there were those who doubted this country’s desire for something new, who said the Revolution of 1776 was a fluke, not to be repeated again.
Well, tonight, the cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Valley Forge was just an illusion now know that we are the American Revolution we need.
This campaign is Philadelphia, Valley Forge, and Yorktown incarnate.
We are Washington and Lincoln.
After two centuries — after two world wars, in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans that we’ve seen in a long, long time.
We are getting those votes, not me.
We are winning those delegates, not me.
We are following us, not me.
We are doing it just as New York Giants fans won the Super Bowl for their team.
In a good America, those fans, and not just the rich players, would get a trophy. All the Giants, even those who could not go to the game but rooted in houses barely able to afford high definition television in Bush’s America, should have shared in the prize.
In a changed America, we will always be we and not just me and thee.
A vote for me is a vote for we.
You will be president when I am president, because I am the president who is we and not me.
You and not a solitary “I” will stand raising our hand to swear allegiance not to a dead document, but to a bold manifesto that begins and ends when it says “We the People . . .”
We are the people that the Constitution calls for. We write the Constitution with every step we make as we elect us President.
You can see it in the faces here tonight. There are young and old, rich and poor. They are black and white, Latino and Asian and Native American, Aleut and Cherokee, left-handed and right-handed, Packer fans and Bear fans, members of the ACLU and the ACLJ, Mormons and Evangelicals, rum drinkers, rebels, and Romans.
They are Democrats from Des Moines and independents from Concord and, yes, some Republicans from rural Nevada. And we’ve got young people all across this country who have never had a reason to participate until now.
They are not just participating, they are winning for us.
Now they are not young, old, rich, poor, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, Republicans, Democrats. They are part of us. They are us. They are the US in USA that will earn an A for America when we put us in the White House.
And in November, in 9 short months, the nation will have the chance to join us in saying that we are tired of business as usual in Washington. We are hungry for change and we are ready to believe again.
We are hungry.
We hunger for more of us.
We desire that more and more people join us.
But if there’s anything, though, that we have been reminded of since some rose up to challenge us, it’s that the kind of change we seek will not come easily, partly because those who disagree with us resist us by making a fetish of elections.
John McCain, a fine dottering old man, will not join us, but we cannot blame him for this, but simply show our desire for him to join us, the people. He is not the people, but one solitary man asking for votes for himself.
He is not a movement, but a man and the time has come for a movement of magic and not for a mere mortal maundering for mandates.
We need to reach out to those not with us and show them our hunger, our desire, for them to join us.
Those who are not for us will find themselves outside of us in the nethergloom of having missed the moment. They will have missed the transformation of the rich to poor, the poor to the government aide recipient, and the great leveling when every man, woman, and differently gendered will be part of one undifferentiated us.
And as contentious as this campaign may get, we have to remember that this is a contest for the presidency.
But there are real differences between the candidates: one is the me that is we and the other is just he.
We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House. We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington.
It’s a status quo that extends beyond any particular party and right now that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got, with the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face, whether those problems are health care that folks can’t afford or a mortgage they cannot pay.
We should have health care that does not just make us better but makes us well. We need health care that can the end curse of ugliness and make everyone as young and attractive as We.
We must not be content merely with health, but need the vision to seek immortality, an immortality the opponents of change would deny us.
Our mortgages must be paid by a government that does not exist only to allow us the slavery of borrowing money to buy a house, but helps us pay that house off.
What good is a mortgage if one must pay it?
What good is a paycheck when all of it must go to mortgages, health care, and other necessities leaving nothing for the latte and on-line gaming that give so many of your lives meaning?
We need food that is fat free, vegan, and nutritious.
Our ambitions are only limited by the font size of our word processors . . . and that too we can change if government demanded bigger fonts from those who would keep large fonts for self and not for us.
So this will not be easy. Make no mistake about what we’re up against. We’re up against the belief that it’s all right for lobbyists to dominate our government, that they are just part of the system in Washington.
They make plain what they want, but they are lobbyists and their wants are not our wants.
We do not lobby.
We demand.
We do not ask, we will take.
Our wants are unlimited, unbounded, and endless, because we are the people. When they demand favors and benefits, they are not people, but lobbyists. When we demand free college, free medicine, and free housing, we are not lobbyists, because we are the people.
We are the people we have been waiting to give benefits.
We’re up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as president comes from having held a job that was not just a stepping stone to your next job. But we know that real leadership is about candor, which candidly we have, and judgment, which your being here shows you have, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose, a higher purpose.
This campaign is that common purpose.
This campaign is that higher purpose.
We are the truth we have been seeking and the life we have been living.
We’re up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable, energy cleaner, the Internet faster, or steroids out of baseball.
Criticism and disagreement are unseemly and demonize. We are not going to take partisanship anymore. We are not going to tolerate disagreement from John McCain. We are not going to stand for the existence of Republicans who are uncooperative, because they stand in the way of nutrition, safety, and wholesome joy.
It’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea, even if it’s one you never agreed with.
Republicans have had ideas! We had the courage to say it. All of them are bad. All of them stink to high heaven, but Republicans should be thankful that we recognize them as ideas.
When we are nice to them, they will vote for us in gratitude for letting them be part of us.
Politics based on disagreement is bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.
We are not going to tolerate attacks on our positions, because our positions are good, true, and beautiful.
What we’ve seen is that we’re also up against forces, strange and evil forces, that are not the fault of John McCain, but feed the habits of disagreement and nastiness that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.
It’s the politics that assumes that everyone cannot be united in Our Campaign. It assumes We cannot rule, We cannot win, We cannot take what We want because We want it.
We are here tonight to say that that is not the America We believe in.
I did not travel around this country over the last year to see individuals, I saw We.
Life in this nation stinks. Our economy is rotten, we are losing a War we should not be fighting, and every single person in this nation is not as happy as they should be.
We will change that.
We will win.
We will make this the best of all possible nations!
We see what America is and We believe in what this country can be. That is the country We see. But now it is up to us to help the entire nation embrace this vision.
We will help them.
We will help them embrace this vision.
They will embrace it.
Oh yes, they will.
Because in the end, We’re not just against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, We’re also struggling with Our own doubts, Our own fears, Our own cynicism. We do believe that We can seduce everyone into Our cause or movement.
We do not accept the limits of humanity, morality, and mortality against hope.
Can We surpass these limits?
Oh yes, we can!
The change We seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice. And so this is a battle in Our own hearts and minds about what kind of country We want and how hard We’re willing to work for it.
We have one Heart.
We have one Mind.
We have one Work.
So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. Change will take time. There will be setbacks and false starts and sometimes We’ll make mistakes.
You will forgive those mistakes, because We made them. To condemn our mistakes is to condemn Us.
We will not feel Bad about Ourselves, because We will love all Americans, including Ourselves. We know We are Good.
But as hard as it may seem, We cannot lose hope, because there are people all across this great nation who are counting on Us, who will give up if We do not win.
We must prevent the national lose of hope that will come if we lose.
So understand this, America. The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich vs. poor, young vs. old.
This election is about the past vs. the future.
Forget the past full of facts We don’t like and embrace the future hazy in its possibility.
It’s about good versus evil.
It is about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama of people with their petty and divisive concerns or whether We reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
We need a great leap forward and an end to the endless and needless discussions that come from partisanship to marching forward hand in hand to a New Economic Program.
There are those who will continue to tell us that We can’t do this, that We can’t have what we’re looking for, that We can’t have what We want, that We’re peddling false hopes.
But when your parents told you to be good, they were narrow minded.
When people tell you that you cannot afford it, then you got credits cards.
When you cannot pay your credit cards, We can help you.
We can have what We are looking for, because We see in the mirror everyday.
But here is what I know.
I know that when people say we can’t overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of that elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day, an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of scripture tucked inside the envelope.
I hope more such elderly women send me their money.
They should send it now. We need it. We need their money and they do not and when We get to Washington We will make it easier for them to give it to Us.
We know they want to give it to Us. Rich people do not want their tax cuts. They did not ask for them. We want to pay more taxes to give Us what We need.
Can We do this?
Yes.
We can.
So don’t tell Us change isn’t possible. Every tax payer soon will know that change is all that they will have.
So is change possible?
Yes.
It is.
Mere participation in this campaign and in the tax paying that is to come offers forgiveness and absolution from every crime. We can unite the rich and the poor through confiscatory taxation.
Yes.
We can.
Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can.
Yes, we can heal this nation.
Heal!
Yes, we can seize our future.
Those keeping our future from us in their greedy plutocrat fingers will find that We can seize our future, because if We are not elected We will have no future.
Our future will not come if We do not exist.
Out of many, We are One; that while We breathe, We will hope.
And where We are met with cynicism and doubt and fear, yes of opposition of any kind, from those who tell us that We can’t, We will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words — yes, We can.
Thank you. I love you. You love me. We are a happy family!
(Ritual Disclaimer: Obama is the first Democrat in my lifetime I would like to vote for. . . but if the election were today, with much sighing, I would vote for John McCain.)