Obama, McCain hit the hustings two years early

The Rochester road show
The Obama road show came to Rochester Monday night with the senator lending his talents to help House candidate Tim Walz and Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar.

Even though he said neither party has a monopoly on virtue, he argued that the Democrats were really the ones who cared about ordinary folks.

“At its core, there’s always been the simple idea, the essence of the Democratic Party, the idea that we’ve got a stake in each other… the idea that if there’s injustice and inequality that we need to do something about it,” he declared.

In his highly compressed history of progress in America, intertwined with a timeline of Democratic presidents, he mentioned crowd-pleasing achievements like the creation of Social Security.

But he omitted the role of Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in sending thousands of soldiers, sailors and aviators (such as McCain) to Vietnam in what became a bitterly unpopular war.

It wasn’t a policy speech, so Obama didn’t offer a plan for what many Democrats see as the latter-day Vietnam War, Iraq. But he got cheers when he said, “the might of our military has to be matched by the finesse of our diplomacy.”

Since he is not yet an officially declared presidential candidate, Obama could afford to be safe in sticking to the rhetoric of moral uplift: the point was to make these rank-and-file Democrats feel good about themselves and their cause so they’d work hard over the next few days drumming up votes for Walz and Klobuchar.

There’ll be time later for policy proposals. And he argued that detailed prescriptions weren’t all that relevant to the voters.

After a long day of work, “they don’t have time for that briefing paper on North Korea or to read the entire federal budget. But I'll tell you what: when they are paying attention, their instincts are good,” he observed.

He did allow as how sometimes the American people became “confused” and “listened to Rush.”

But now with the Democrats ahead in most polls, he said the American people were showing “a seriousness of purpose.”

'He's my candidate for president'
After the speech Obama took to the rope line. Fans thrust at him copies of Time magazine with Obama’s photo on the cover for him to autograph.

An Obama enthusiast from among the many in the crowd was elder statesman, former Minnesota Gov. Wendell Anderson, who said Obama ought to run in 2008.

Anderson called Hillary Clinton “a fine senator, but she would polarize us” if she ran for president.”

But of Obama, he said simply, “He’s my candidate for president. I like what he said in East Africa where he told the folks there ‘quit blaming colonialism, start working, get rid of corruption.’”

Anderson predicted Obama would, like John F. Kennedy, get bored with the Senate.

So run in 2008 for the White House, was his counsel — and do it soon before you become infected with Washington penchant for blather.

“He’s obviously tremendously bright; he would make us look good in the world community,” he said. “We also have a problem with young male blacks that have a tough time finding their way. He would be a perfect role model and also he could talk to them in a way I couldn’t talk to them.”

Anderson, a young rising political star himself four decades ago, is only three years older than McCain.

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