DNC Day 4 Obama's Speech

Wow. Here I am, a 55 year old grumpy white male, registered Republican, sitting in front of the television with tears in my eyes, feeling humbled and so proud to be an American. There is no doubt that millions of people worldwide witnessed history in the making.

The Democratic Convention was a beautiful production, well put together and seamlessly pulled off. There were excellent speeches given on all days, in fact so good that the buzz was that Barack Obama was going to have to come up with something really special on Thursday night. He wrote and delivered one of the most well crafted speeches in the history of the United States, proving what an inspiring and great orator he has become. It will be a speech that will be studied and used as an example of excellence for many years to come.

I tried to get the 15 year old girl to watch the speech, after all, she has some Black, Hispanic, and Native American blood in her, but her response was " whatever " and reburied herself in her Myspace page. I hope that there are some of her generation less in the grip of raging hormones interested in what goes on in the world, but I seem to recall a certain amount of apathy at that age myself. And a fair amount of cynicism in my current world views, which is why Obama's speech took me by pleasant surprise.

The cynical part of me isn't sure if he can pull off any of his plans for the economy and the way that Washington currently works. It may take a total economic and political collapse before people will actually be willing to change, when there is no other option. I would be happy if I had less things to complain about.

The irony here is that it's the Republicans who really need to change and rebuild their party from the ground up. They have to get rid of the tainted right wing ideas that haven't worked and have almost bankrupted our country, both physically and morally. It should have been a Republican giving such a moving speech and there isn't anyone in the GOP who can rise to the occasion.