That Was the Obama We're Still Waiting For

As the Democratic convention approaches, it's a safe bet that the cable networks will transport us back in time to late July 2004 by showing clips of Barack Obama's electrifying keynote address to that year's gathering. That was the speech that made him a star (and unlike John McCain's ad team, I mean this as a compliment). But I've sometimes wondered in recent months: Whatever happened to that Obama, to that enemy of excessive partisanship and evangelist of national unity?

You will recall the money sentences: "Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America." These phrases were followed by several deftly chosen images designed to skewer the stereotypes that red and blue Americans entertain about each other. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states," Obama thundered. "And yes," he added, "we've got some gay friends in the red states."

These now-famous lines constituted just a small sliver of the speech; the rest was more standard stuff -- his biography, his concern for workers at a Maytag plant in Galesburg, Ill., (he was running for Senate, after all) and, of course, all the marvelous things that John F. Kerry would do as president. But those lines stood out for a reason: They articulated a deep yearning, held by many Americans of varying beliefs, for less polarization and division. This theme was precisely what cata pulted Obama to the front rank of Democratic poli ticians.

Now ask yourself: Have you heard Obama talk like that lately?

Chances are you haven't. The grand 2004 theme of post-partisanship seems to have all but disappeared from the candidate's rhetoric. In a major foreign policy address he delivered just before his overseas trip last month, he enumerated some of the steps the United States should have taken after Sept. 11, 2001. Getting Osama bin Laden led the list, but when it came to domestic priorities, the man who burst onto the national scene talking about one America conspicuously failed to mention his regret that, instead of being united after the attacks, Americans were divided along partisan lines by an administration that wielded patriotism as an ideological cudgel.

I recently asked David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, what became of post-partisanship. "Oh, I think he still speaks about it, and I'm sure it'll be a theme at our convention," Axelrod told me. "It's still fundamental to who he is." I'm sure that's true, but I also think that Obama will miss an important opportunity if he doesn't use this month's convention to restate this theme -- and remind voters that a purpler America is still a pretty good idea.

Here are four theories about why Obama has moved post-partisanship to the rhetorical back burner.

Theory No. 1: There's only room in a campaign for one big theme at a time, and the Obama team has settled on "change." That's fair enough. Change is undemanding and direct. It requires no presumed level of information, whereas describing a "post-partisan future" counts on voters' knowing that we're in a partisan time and being upset by that or, heck, even knowing what partisanship is to begin with. The urge to keep it simple is understandable.

Theory No. 2: Post-partisanship is too abstract. Obama has taken lots of fire from pundits and GOP operatives for supposedly being too highfalutin', a propensity he now feels he must guard against. (Of course, this is one of the planet's dumbest arguments: Humble people don't run for president, and that goes for John McCain, too.) So Obama's more recent rhetoric has tended to emphasize nuts and bolts -- his plans for Iraq, Afghanistan and the world and his prescriptions for the economy. Again, understandable.

Theory No. 3: The Obama team may feel that they've already established the purple theme sufficiently. They may be right; I don't see their internal polling results. But my sense is that if you asked the average voter today to name three or four things about Obama, few would say, "He wants to bring the country together." Even a year ago, many more would have.

Theory No. 4: It could be that the post-partisanship theme is simply less resonant now than it was in 2004. Back then, in an election that was a referendum on President Bush, the United States really was a 50-50 country. But with Bush weak and Karl Rove gone, Democrats can be forgiven for thinking that polarization is now a less pressing issue and that the equation tilts more in their favor today. Still, the McCain campaign shows every sign of planning to run -- quite counter to the candidate's earlier pronouncements -- a Rove-style, divide-and-conquer campaign. (The man who vowed to run a substantive, honorable campaign is bringing us Paris Hilton?) Obama is giving as well as getting on this front, so we'll certainly see our share of partisan politics between now and Nov. 4.

So perhaps the Obama campaign has good reasons to move away from the theme that made its candidate famous. The Obama people may know exactly what they're doing. After all, they haven't done too badly so far.