The Fierce Urgency of Now: Barack Obama and the 2008 Presidential Election

This essay uses an analysis of the convention addresses of Barack Obama, John McCain, and Sarah Palin to explain the development of the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama's ultimate appeal can be traced to his call for reconstituting the American Dream to take care of the entire community. It is his appeal to communitarian values in a time of growing crisis that explains the enormous movement that his campaign generated. As the economic crisis worsened in the fall, this message became still more powerful. In contrast, McCain and Palin ran a campaign based on personality, largely a depiction of McCain as a hero and of both of them as mavericks. Given their commitment to utterly traditional conservative policy prescriptions, the maverick theme ultimately declined in importance, leaving their campaign with no option except strident attack on Obama as unqualified and out of the mainstream. These attacks ultimately failed in part because of Obama's skill at calmly explaining policy positions and also because in a time of growing crisis they lost resonance.