Brian Howey Column

Two political meteors streak across the sky

INDIANAPOLIS -- There were about a dozen people gathered in my living room on Aug. 28 to watch Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I asked, "When was the last time you gathered with friends to watch a political speech?"

For most, it was the first time ever. Obama's rhetoric soared to the rim of a stadium a mile high but the central message and the impressive set were grounded in the realities of the coming slugfest with John McCain. Six days later, I found myself transfixed once again to the TV set. This time, it was Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who stepped up to the dais and delivered a real stemwinder.

It reminded me of a pristine midnight moment I had with friends on Grandview Lake near Columbus in early August as we drifted in our kayaks, watching meteors streak across the dark night sky. In Obama and Palin, Americans now have two shooting stars that have dramatically altered the political landscape this year. In late 2007, the conventional wisdom was that we would likely have a second Clinton in the White House, following a second Bush. McCain was road kill. No one even knew Palin.

Now, with about 60 short days left before the election, we will have a second, sensational presidential sprint playing out on Hoosier soil. Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy national campaign manager, echoed an April comment that Obama made in Indianapolis when he said Indiana would likely be the "tiebreaker" in his race with Hillary Clinton. "If we were to win every John Kerry state plus Iowa, we'd have 259 Electoral College votes," Hildebrand said. "Indiana has 11 Electoral College votes. Indiana could put us over the top."

Luke Messer, McCain's Indiana director, agrees. He notes that a Republican will run about 8 percent better in Indiana than in national polls, and as he spoke to me from St. Paul, Gallup had Obama up by 8 percent. A recent Howey-Gauge Poll (see www.howeypolitics.com) has the Obama-McCain race a virtual tossup.

But even more delicious is the prospect of Palin coming to Indiana, as well as McCain, but also Obama and, perhaps once again, Bill and Hillary Clinton. My dear Hoosier folk, we are sitting at the epicenter of the American political universe. Hildebrand explained, "If we didn't think Indiana was competitive, we wouldn't be spending millions of dollars running TV ads for nine weeks. We wouldn't be running 31 offices in Indiana."

Amazing ... But even more invigorating were the words we've heard from Obama and Palin. "We're a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for 20 years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news," Obama told 80,000 people at the stadium in Denver, 40 million on TV and untold millions more on the campaign's incredible Internet operation.

"We meet at one of those defining moments -- a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more," Obama said. "More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach. America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this."

And enters Palin, a mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, just a few years ago, who took on an incumbent Republican governor and won in 2006. "Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion," Palin declared Wednesday at the RNC. "I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country."

She also shot off punishing jabs to Obama, saying at one point, "I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

President Lincoln was once asked what makes a good politician. He answered, "To be able to raise a cause which will produce an effect, and then fight the effect." Many consider Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as the finest oratory in political history. Author Ronald Cedric White's classic book "Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural" makes the case otherwise. At Lincoln's "second appearing," he noted that there "is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper."

After two great speeches, Obama and Joe Biden, McCain and Palin, must now give us -- in detail -- where they plan to lead this nation. At this writing, the American political mold has been broken and given the circumstances, this is wholly fitting and proper.

Howey. a former Elkhart Truth reporter, is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at www.howeypolitics.com