Obama in '08You bet your ass he can.

Barack stood up that day, and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be.” And he said that all too often, we accept the distance between the two, and settle for the world as it is - even when it doesn’t reflect our values and aspirations. But he reminded us that we know what our world should look like. We know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves - to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be.

Look,” Mr. Obama said in response to a question in Martinsville. “John McCain, let’s face it. He’s got a compelling biography. He’s a P.O.W. And so, that’s what people kind of think about instead of focusing on the fact that he wants to continue the same economic policies that George Bush has been doing for the last eight years. So my job in this election is to say, I honor his service, but I don’t honor his policies, and I don’t honor his politics, and we need a change.

The first time I met Barack Obama—I should say the only time I’ve met Barack Obama—was a year ago, when he was doing fifty-person-cocktail-party fund-raisers. He flattered me by saying, “My intention is to steal a lot of your lines.” My prediction is he’s just going to blow the doors off the place in Denver. This is a man who—the Jeremiah Wright of it all aside—was clearly paying attention in church. I don’t need to tell you that I’m a big fan of oratory. A big part of leadership is the goose-bump experience. We’ve been missing that.

As somebody who didn’t grow up with a father in the home, I like having men come up to me saying, ‘You know, I’m really glad you’re a good father.’ I like that maybe some little boy somewhere who doesn’t have a dad in his house sees Michelle and the girls and me out somewhere and is going to going to carry that image in his head with him somewhere down the road.