Obama Takes The Stage

Barack Hussein Obama has accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for President in a fantastic speech acknowledging the will of the common American man and woman. I spent 45mins after I got home in the wee hours watching the video replay on BBC. It's a smart speech that explains his vision, how he is going to correct the flaws of the past 8 years of Republican US government, why his opponent John McCain isn't the man for the job, and how he wants to bring back the 'American promise' back to Americans who deserve better.

During the speech, I noticed a certain words and references he used. Post-watching, I threw the text of the speech into Word and did a Command-F to seek out these words.

In his speech, he used
- 'her' 11 times (no mention of 'him')
- 'daughters' 3 times
- 'son' once
--> there was a very strong feminist theme to his speech. He mentioned his grandmother's struggles, and female workers who should be able to stay home to look after their sick children without being at risk of losing their jobs.

- 'Kennedy' 3 times
- 'Roosevelt' once
--> These presidents presented Americans with a platform positive change and rallied the nation to work for a better future.

- 'Bush' 8 times and 'McCain' 23 times
--> Well, you have to remind everyone who the 'enemy' is. One main takeaway was "...John McCain doesn't get it. " and "Eight is enough."

- 'change' 14 times
- 'worker' or 'workers' 7 times
- 'American promise' 4 times
--> A great deal was said about how the average American worker has been sidelined by the current lawmakers in Washington - that tax breaks go to the big money corporations, that American workers are losing jobs to the Chinese. Obama's key message was Americans were still proud and able to compete, they just needed a government to help them.

- 'Georgia' twice but each referring to a different land area
--> It's an interesting time for the US and whoever takes office in November. Russia has been warming up to its new found power as an oil and gas provider in an energy-starved world, and took the next step in shaking things up by sending troops into Georgia, pulling out partially and recognizing two breakaway provinces. The current president Medvedev said "all people have the right to self determination", hence their intervention. (Personally, that's bullshit. Just ask him about Chechnya.). The other Georgia of course is the American state where Martin Luther King was from.

- He used Martin Luther King's words once without referring to the man
--> I think there is no way a Black president could run for political office without mentioning the reverend.

The best thing about his speech, apart from the inspiration, was that he could pronounce Iraq the right way.