My favorite videos (speeches, ads and other random moments) from a ridiculously long and arduous Presidential campaign. I start off the blog with them, because the campaign itself has woken me up from academic hibernation and prompted me to start this blog.
1) The first killer ad coming from Obama fans. Brilliant in its design and devastatingly simple in its message:
2) Remember Mike Huckabee?
3) Obama's "Yes We Can" Speech. I fell in love with the guy after watching this one (and promptly ordered his memoir on Amazon). His rhetoric still had a transcendental quality back then, before Hillary's mudslinging pushed him towards more neutral territory.
4) The music video inspired by the previous speech featuring will.i.am and a host of other celebrities. Directed by Bod Dylan's son, it was first released on dipdive.com and became an instant sensation. Throughout the campaign Obama used the Internet as well as an impressive number of volunteers to redefine grassroots campaigning.
5) Hillary's tear-stained choking before the NH primary. In retrospect, I think people (esp. women) sympathized with her in the same way they cling to a trusted brand that faces imminent collapse.
6) Obama, facing accusations on inflammatory comments of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, gives a generation-defining speech on race. He says he can't disown him in the same way he cannot disown his white grandmother who sometimes made cursory racist remarks. My favorite lines:
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
7) The One tries to connect with middle America and bowls a 37. Stick to the orange ball, Dude:
8) The infamous 3am Clinton ad:
9) Hillary concedes gracefully:
10) Jesse Jackson gets a little antsy and Obama gets a boost for his Presidential bid:
