New Obama music video – This is no time to dream?
Now, I love Obama. Have since I watched him address the Democratic Convention in 2004. He is a transformational leader, as they say. But there’s something about this new Dave Stewart “American Prayer” music video that makes me feel uneasy.
[youtube oVi4rUzf-0Q]
Eh, it’s not a bad tune. But the video borders on parody. (Can you really take anything with Perez Hilton and Margaret Cho in it seriously?) In fact, it represents everything that has gone wrong with the Obama campaign in the past month.
The line that really sticks is “this is no time to dream.” It plays over a images of tanks, smokestacks, a sign by a homeless veteran, and gas being pumped. We know it’s bad, but isn’t it the dream that carries us through. In the beginning, Obama embodied that ideal. “Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.” Those were his words in January after he won the Iowa caucus. We don’t hear that anymore.
Somewhere along the lines, the campaign go it into their heads that because Barack Obama made us believe in something that he wouldn’t be able to do the job of president. So he changed his tune a bit after winning the nomination. He made his move to the center, but ironically dropped the “one nation” rhetoric. It’s as if hope was something that only a Democratic voter could grasp.
Granted he was no longer able to stay above the fray as the presumptive nominee. It’s what hurt him when he had to go one-on-one with Hillary Clinton. He had to attack on a level that seemed outside of his rhetorical comfort zone. At the podium, on a public stage, attacks didn’t work for the Obama brand. They still don’t.
With the Democratic Convention kicking of tomorrow, Obama’s campaign needs to realize that this is the moment, that this is the time to go re-engage with people on a level that makes them believe that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” That’s the Obama this country needs.
Here’s the only music video that reminds us of that:
[youtube jjXyqcx-mYY]
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