That Was the Obama We're Still Waiting For

And in fact, instead of talking about post-partisanship, Obama has in some respects been demonstrating it. His apparently close relationship with retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who traveled with him to Iraq and shows many signs of intending to endorse him, is the clearest manifestation of this. The recent ad bragging about Obama's nuclear nonproliferation work with Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), an ad that Lugar clearly green-lighted, is another.

I suspect that Hagel will speak at the Democratic convention and appear in ads for Obama down the road. And I wonder about former secretary of state Colin L. Powell and Lincoln Chafee (the former Rhode Island GOP senator, now an independent), and Susan Eisenhower (Ike's granddaughter) and even Douglas W. Kmiec, a conservative legal scholar who is hardly a household name but whose endorsement of Obama was a huge deal in certain circles. If these folks are willing to speak for Obama, offering testimonials to his ability to lead us toward a new kind of politics, that could well do more to advance the national unity theme than any amount of rhetoric from the candidate.

Even so, I would like to see Obama return to the post-partisan, one-America idea himself. It's an electoral winner and a governing essential, should he be elected.

It's an electoral winner because Democrats can't really triumph in divide-and-conquer elections. No, it's not that they're too noble for them. It's just that they're not as good at it as the Rove Republicans are, and progressive core positions don't translate as well into fear-mongering rhetoric. The Democrats fear-monger pretty effectively about Social Security -- as well they should -- but beyond that, it's hard to scare people into fearing that the other guy is going to cut your taxes too much or be too tough on our enemies.

Of course, Obama must attack McCain and return fire when fired upon, but he needs to do something more. He must get some percentage of people to vote their hopes, not their fears, as Bill Clinton used to put it. As McCain sprints rightward on a range of issues and dedicates himself to a negative campaign designed to scare 51 percent of the voters about Obama's euphemistic "otherness" and alleged lack of preparedness, a dose of trans-partisan optimism will make a useful contrast.

And the one-America theme will be crucial if he actually wins. As president, Obama will need to unite liberals and moderates of both parties and isolate the conservative blocs in the House and especially the Senate to get anything done. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

It's been a while now since Obama really rocked the house with a great speech. His Berlin effort seemed medium-cool by design, as if he didn't want to create too much frenzy overseas. But in Denver, he'll be speaking to Americans, to voters. "People will leave the convention with a strong sense of who he is, what animates him, and how he will govern," Axelrod told me. "And I think his desire for bipartisanship is a big part of that."

The television coverage will remind viewers of his 2004 triumph. Obama should remind them of the core idea that made that speech a triumph -- and of why they were taken with him in the first place.

mtomasky@gmail.com

Michael Tomasky is the editor of Guardian America, the U.S.-based Web site of the Guardian.