Ditto what Anon said about the "Affective Candidacy." The term eloquence directs us to affective/touching side of suasive power, and this is Obama's strength (as it was Bill Clinton's).

As speeches go, it was good.

As Obama speeches go, it fell short, and that falling is emotive/affective, not reasoned. I thought the speech was excellent. But I felt the speech held-back. It was super-over-the-top calculated, but unlike Obama's past remarks, you could see the structure of the speech poke out, each constituency appeal, every little twist. In this sense, the speech came off to me as unnatural and insincere.

The only moment he even began to approach the emotive sublimity of which he is capable came at the very end, when the prose rose up and up and he started to reckon with the significant anniversary---and just when he reached that plateau where the waterworks start (as they did with the crowd in the stadium), he pulled back--played it safe.

So, meh. Once this guy gets in office, however, I think rhetorically he may not be so calculating. This may result in some truly remarkable rhetorical performances of genius. Last night wasn't one of them---not sure it could be, given what's at stake.

Josh

I've been watching this while reading a lot on affect theory, so that's colored my reaction. But even since Obama was here in Iowa, I've had this hypothesis that what is motivating his candidacy is not the specific platforms and positions he holds, nor even the positions he has held, both literally and politically. Rather, Obama's candidacy is affective. It's not where he stands, it how he moves. In a strange way, this gets around the "3 a.m." problem of judgment, even though as a deeper implication, lots of folks like McCain, "don't get it" and Obama comes off as "elitist."

Still, the whole convention seemed marked by this kind of movement. Values, families, gender, race, history: these were not explicit stands being taken with a resulting deadlock over who will give up ground first. Rather, these things were embodied by the speakers, emergent intensities that spread almost virally beyond any individual ethos. This kind of affect seems to have won over those who held and identified with gendered locations in their support for Hillary. But can this affect move those who want to see the proof, not just the pudding? Is there a metaphysical divide so deep here that affectivity isn't enough? And can Obama keep moving while also taking clear positions as he appeared to do last night? Will that trap him in charges of flip-flopping as it did last month? I hope it'll be fun to find out!

I thought the speech was pitch-perfect. He covered a lot of policy territory with good detail, and stressed just the right points (I especially liked the way he emphasized the point about how he's only going to raise taxes for those making more than 200K, when he said "Listen now--"). He had some funny moments ("eight is enough" made me giggle, and him too), and also some good strong fightin' words. There was some nice antithetical repetition--"McCain doesn't get it", then later in the speech "I get it." He's also quite the pedagogue. Anyone who listened probably learned something about something else besides Obama. See John Murphy's Oratorical Animal (link to the left) for equally terrific live-action commentary.