As I was watching the new Obama commercial about his American story, which reprised some of his biographical film from the convention, my thoughts went back to his acceptance speech.

Granted, at the time it seemed like the politically smart thing for him to scale back the "soaring rhetoric" which was among the many things McCain had been steadily bashing him for throughout all of August.  For Obama to get more pragmatic and specific than inspirational was a shrewd, somewhat unexpected tack for him to take, and I still think it was the right one.  But I think some, especially the viewers who don't count themselves among his stronger supporters, were left feeling a little bit underwhelmed.  Having seen some of his previous speeches, this one didn't seem to hit those emotional high notes with as much resonance as he's really capable of.

But now, seeing this latest commercial and how it provides a refrain from the convention, it causes me to take a step back and look at the longer-term perspective of this campaign, the overarching story from start to finish.  And it seems like Barack has always been seeing the chess board a few moves further ahead than many people, certainly me.  And it makes me wonder if part of the reason he didn't feel it necessary to make his acceptance speech that superlatively uplifting, inspirational, transcendent speech some were expecting to see at the convention was because he knew that he'd be giving that speech a little bit later on...


I. Boston
II. Springfield
III. Philadelphia
IV. Berlin
V. Denver
VI. Washington, D.C.

Future box set?