Times Change
Noam Scheiber reminisces:
This, in turn, prompted me to recall how much of a non-celebrity Obama was when I met him four-and-a-half years ago. I distinctly remember trailing him around some cloak room or caucus room in the Illinois state senate in April of 2004. This attracted a lot of attention from his colleagues, and one of them–a middle-aged white woman, if I remember correctly–finally asked who I was. “He’s from The New Republic,” Obama told her. I might have imagined it, but I got the impression people were pretty impressed.
I met Obama on line for a breakfast buffet at a hotel somewhere in downtown Boston at the 2004 convention. As I recall, we were both going for some bacon. He wasn’t so staffed up at that point. When he said he was Barack Obama, I knew who he was, but at that point he wasn’t so famous that I just recognized him off the bat or anything. It must have been a day or two later when I was inside the Fleet Center and randomly ran into a guy I knew who, unbeknownst to me, had moved to Illinois to work for Ron Blagojevic (this was back when Blago was a progressive rising star) and he told me that I just had to get into the arena to hear this guy Barack Obama speak. He told me it was going to be something else.
And you know what? It was.
And I suppose this is petty of me, but as we await tomorrow’s historic occasion in some ways I can’t help but feel that that night four and a half years ago was the real deal—not what’s going to happen tomorrow. Real history has that spontaneous quality. Before Obama spoke, a minority of people knew that he was a brilliant orator, and absolutely nobody knew that he was about to launch an incredibly sudden rise from the State Senate to the White House. But it happened. And though of course the full import of those events couldn’t be known until Election Day 2008, people who saw the speech immediately knew that something surprising and important had happened.
74 Responses to “Times Change”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
January 19th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
I think the actual truth lies somewhere between MattY’s above attempt to be an even more obsequious courtier than Joe Klein and this, but closer to the latter. Maybe one day MattY will get drunk on apricot brandy and start looking into who exactly pushed and bankrolled BHO.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I remember well Obama’s speech at the 2004 convention, and how many people were saying wow! this guy could be the first black president! Who among them imagined that it would happen in four years?
Now let’s see if he’s any good.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I’ve wondered if there was a camera on Hillary’s face during that Obama speech. The film would be worth watching.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
unbeknownst to me, had moved to Illinois to work for Ron Blagojevic (this was back when Blago was a progressive rising star)
Someone was smoking something or didn’t know shit about Illinois. If you didn’t know what you were going to get from Dick Mell’s son-in-law, you are really naive. I didn’t vote for him in the Primary and when I did vote for him in the general I just did it to punish the Dupage County mob.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Get a grip, Yglesias.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I remember thinking, after the convention speech, “Wow, that guy’s going to be the first black president!” I was just blown away by his roof-raising oratory.
Unfortunately, this was in 2000, and the speaker was Harold Ford.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
LOL. I’d buy that for a dollar.
Let me guess: Bill Ayers.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
My assessment is “Yes, but no.”
Obama’s speech was inspiring, and definitely a big deal. But so was Mario Cuomo’s, back in the day. (That’s just an example.) The something surprising and important that you _knew_ had just happened was a blossoming of _potential_. But the events between then and now are what separate the people saying “I knew it, back then!” from the people who say “That might’ve really turned into something.”
January 19th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I’d pay top dollar for a 2012 Fundraiser that involves eating bacon with Yglesias and President Obama.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
As I recall, we were both going for some bacon.
Tsk, tsk.
January 19th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
But the events between then and now are what separate the people saying “I knew it, back then!” from the people who say “That might’ve really turned into something.”
yeah, no kidding. Before Barack Obama, everyone was talking of “the curse of the keynote speaker.” Cuomo? Faded. Bill Clinton’s speech was widely panned and no one thought anything would come of him. Zell Miller in ‘92? We all know what happened to him. Evan Bayh? “Is the future of the Democratic party, and always will be.” Harold Ford? Supports himself only through the largesse of the DLC.
January 19th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Comedy Gold: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=57076632845&ref=nf
January 19th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Tyro-
And to add- while Mark Warner’s got some potential to keep moving up, his speech was pretty crummy.
Way to quote “The Contender”, too.
January 19th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
“we were both going for some bacon”
More proof that Obama is just one of those deep cover muslims.
January 19th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Somebody call the Waaaaaambulance!
January 19th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Brian Schweitzer was the real keynote speaker this year. Warner blew it, way too boring.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I remember Anna Quindlen wrote a pretty good column a week or so after the 2004 convention that pretty adequately captured that feeling of surprise and yearning that the Obama speech awoke. This at the height of all that swift boat crap — a sense that we were better than our politics was allowing us to be.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Matt Yglesias wrote:
As I recall, we were both going for some bacon
The child of a Muslim and the child of a Jew, both reaching pig-meat in America. Sweet land of liberty…
January 19th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Dude, you still listen to Obama? I haven’t liked any of his stuff since Perfect Union. But I saw him open for Kerry back in 2004 before he sold out and went mainstream. That was a cool show, man.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
You’re not being petty Matt. You’re just being pretentious.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
I want to thank you, over the last 5 years you have served as a wonderful case study of how an independent thinker evolves and settles into hackdom. Now we finally know when the cherry was broken and you discovered the carnal pleasure of being a bloody groupie…
January 19th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Obama is an incredibly methodical politician with a very clear and consistent vision of how he things politics can work
I can b prez?!
January 19th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
I think the big night was election night. Up until that moment, Obama could still have stayed just a very remarkable senator. That night sealed the deal and wasthe moment that history was truly made.
January 19th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Joe from Lowell,
I agree with you about Harold Ford. He would have made a great president. Sadly, he will never be the nominee, since he fails to toe the Democratic Party line on the litmus issue of abortion.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I met Obama on line for a breakfast buffet
On line? This has been bothering me for some time (and has nothing to do with the post). What ever happened to waiting IN line? Is this some kind of east-coast dialect shift? Does this have anything to do with the rise of the internet? I’m just so confused…
January 19th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Waiting “on line” is a New York area dialectical peculiarity, though some have claimed that the rise of the internet and discussion of bringing this “online” has made the expression more common.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
@ Tyro: Thank you!
January 19th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
yeah, yeah. Your the cool kid who saw the band back in the day when they really rocked and before they sold out and everyone started liking them. Your indie cred is duly established.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
I, a Washington-area child, went away to Boston University when I was 17. It seemed that practically everyone who went to school there, except for me, was from the New York/New Jersey area. They all said “on line”, and it freaked me out! At the same time I had to adjust to the Bostonian “tonic”, which meant soda. When I first saw the signs on the hot-dog carts, I thought they were actually selling tonic water. Oh my goodness, life was hard. Frappe.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Change of a dollar.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
“Unfortunately, this was in 2000, and the speaker was Harold Ford.”
I refuse to believe Ford could deliver a speech one-tenth as exciting as Obama’s keynote.
Ford is DLC through and through. He’s also dour, a bit of a scold, and seems kind of stupid.
Definitely not the kind of guy I’d like to have a beer with. Or any other beverage where I’d have to listen to him hector Democrats for not being religious enough for more than five seconds.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Fixed it for you. No need to thank me.
And besides, has Harold Ford ever actually excited anyone to even nearly the extent that Hillary routinely does, let alone Obama?
January 19th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Cool story.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
@Ikram
Very funny comment. Weirdly inspiring.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
And besides, has Harold Ford ever actually excited anyone to even nearly the extent that Hillary routinely does, let alone Obama?
No, and that sad fuck hitched his whole career to the DLC. You can look at his personal life and tell he doesn’t believe in the moralist scold bullshit he tries to pull off. I’m about 99% sure he doesn’t believe in the neo-liberal economic bullshit he used to try and sell either.
Harold Ford is one sad ass cautionary tale, HE was supposed to be the first black president by carefully following the dictates of the powers that be in the Democratic Party. Except he’s not, and now he’s an anachronism.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
And I’ve been reading Matt since before his commentary really, truly began to suck. Oh, well.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Sometimes in the month or so before the 2004 Key Note Address, the New Yorker published a long article on Barack Obama, and after reading that article and hearing a little bit about who he was, you certainly felt like “this guy is gonna be the first black President,” and at the very least I felt that this was the kind of guy I’ve been waiting to vote for all my life.
I felt like I had some sort of secret knowledge when he gave that Key Note address, thinking it would be great because of what I’d read, and then being surprised he actually lived up to the hype and knocked it out of the park.
But winning the presidency just 4 years after he became famous? It’s probably the most astonishing political feat in history. Regardless of his race.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
“Sometimes in the month or so before the 2004 Key Note Address, the New Yorker published a long article on Barack Obama,”
Do you have a link for that? Would be interesting to read, though I’m too lazy to go looking for it.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Let me guess: Bill Ayers.
No, silly. (Here’s the skinny on Crazybot Kelly’s Jeopardy! tryout: he answered “WhatIsTheMexicanGovernment?” for everything other than “Its head is the Ciudadano Presidente Constitucional”.)
Anyway, while it’s always easy to play revisionist with oh-wow moments, that was one that hit you like a cold shower. Lots of people realised it, too: his autobiog had sold a respectable 14,000 or so copies before going out of print, and within a couple of months of its reissue, the royalties had made him and his family very comfortable indeed.
(Cue Popeye to come in and say that his review is the only one that matters.)
January 19th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Yeah, if Harold Ford had only been more liberal and less moralistic he would have won statewide in Tennessee!
I know you people hate the DLC with a passion, but some of these comments are just clueless.
And don’t be so quick to conclude that Obama succeeded electorally where Ford failed. Obama was crushed by both Clinton and McCain in Tennessee.
The fact that an urban black Democrat whose father was once indicted by a federal grand jury got that close to winning a Senate seat in the South is a small miracle.
The DLC isn’t the reason Harold Ford, Jr.’s career stalled.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:08 am
They all said “on line”, and it freaked me out!
Well, now that I’ve moved down to the DC area, I have to listen to people say things like “Avenoo” instead of “Avenyou” and “Sundee” instead of “Sunday,” and it freaks me out, too.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Pardon me for being offtopic, but –
I’ve been disconnected for a little while now, and it seems that a certain post by Mr. Yglesias has disappeared. It regarded Steve Jobs, alternative medicine, his alleged cancer, and the future of Apple.
Could Mr. Yglesias, Jennifer Palmieri, the Illuminati, or anyone else please enlighten me?
January 20th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Here is the link to that New Yorker article on Obama from May 2004:
January 20th, 2009 at 1:11 am
New Yorker article:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/31/040531fa_fact1?currentPage=all
January 20th, 2009 at 1:12 am
This is called the beta performing an obeisance towards the alpha male.
Embarrassing, Matt.
I don’t give a damn about his oratory, or how smart he is, or whatever. I want rational policies. I’m not seeing them.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:02 am
This is called the beta performing an obeisance towards the alpha male.
You mean like what you do with Mahmoud Ahmadijenad all the time? Does anyone give a damn what Hacktacular gives a damn about?
January 20th, 2009 at 2:11 am
I’m the specialest of the doting monkeys because I started volunteering for the guy when he was a longshot candidate in May of 2003. He was definitely becoming a big deal before The Speech, he had to become something of a big deal to get IN that position in the first place. As others have pointed out, he was getting national press before that. I would think his lopsided victory in the Senate primary probably helped him become famous. 53 percent in a seven person race that included two machine pols and a billionaire.
January 20th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Dude, you still listen to Obama? I haven’t liked any of his stuff since Perfect Union. But I saw him open for Kerry back in 2004 before he sold out and went mainstream. That was a cool show, man.
I remember that show. I’ve still got the tee-shirt.
January 20th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I don’t much like Harold Ford’s corporate, DLC politics either, but he absolutely kicked ass at the 2000 convention.
January 20th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I just re-watched that Obama 2004 speech. Looks like just another effete liberal egghead to me, albeit one getting some good lines in about how Democrats are true patriots (this during a “time of war”) and about how we should not be divided as a country. He’s an interesting combination of law professor and black preacher, who presents his uncommon heritage in the most inspiring light, but the political innovation here lies in being able to cobble together the Bill Bradley and Jesse Jackson parts of the coalition, while allowed him to beat Hillary and then ride the financial meltdown to victory. The difference between him and John Kerry, for example, is (a) in 2008, the political zeitgeist turned “boring” into “reassuring” (b) the “inspiring” part of Obama’s biography didn’t occur three decades earlier, and wasn’t uncomfortably contradictory.
January 20th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I know what you mean. I remember being told to watch for Obama as well, don’t know by whom. And, I remember thinking, yeah right!! With that attitude going into the speech I came out impressed, but still had some of my pessimism (about the country in general, and, public service mentality in particular) intact. Boy, am I glad I was wrong – albeit a bit too late…
– r
January 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I was amazed at the ‘04 keynote speech, and the second it concluded turned to neighbor and said that he would be president one day (hoping it would be 2012, in order to succeed Kerry…). His speech was so far above everyone else, in terms of rehtoric and delivery. Then I found out he mostly wrote it himself. No one was talking to America like that. No politican or media figure. Just the tone of “we’re all on the same team, you are adults, and I’ll speak to you like adults faced with complex issues.”
Not sure where these Ford people are coming from; but I would say that it’s a tough time, cyclically, for a black dem to run statewide in Tennesee (and was in ‘04). But Ford is a scion of a political family. There is just no way he compares to Obama.
After the keynote speech, anyone with half a brain perked up and took notice.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I was driving Congressman Rangel around during the 2000 convention as a volunteer and I was able to witness Obama’s speech and knew I would be hearing much more from him in the years ahead.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I was the first outsider hired by Santos for President so Yglesias can go fuck himself.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Ed,
Re: You can look at his personal life and tell he doesn’t believe in the moralist scold bullshit he tries to pull off.
Clearly. The only reason Mr. Ford is morally conservative is because the DLC told him to be. It couldn’t have anything to do with, oh, his devout Baptist convictions.
Hipsters like you like to use black people as a convenient voting block, but then you shut your ears when they start telling you that you need to change your moral behavior. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
As for losing Tennessee, Harold Ford lost Tennessee because it’s a conservative Republican state. Al Gore couldn’t win Tennessee, and neither could Barack Obama. Ford is married now, anyway, so the Republicans won’t be able to pull that “Playboy party” s–t again.
January 20th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Tyro #11: Well, among Cuomo, Clinton, Miller, Bayh, Ford, and Obama, 2 of the 6 became president 4 years after their keynote speech. That’s a decent batting average…. And Bayh was close to becoming VP in 2000, if certain events had worked in his favor.
And the Dems were smart to showcase both Schweitzer and Warner this time. Need to stock the farm team for years down the road.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:37 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
March 13th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Incredible site!
March 14th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
xanax
March 17th, 2009 at 3:00 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
tramadol
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:12 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
cheap brand pfizer viagra