Why Obama

My god that’s a beautiful image.
*****
As for Palin, I’m getting Marie Antoinette meets Andy Griffith in a power suit, by cracker jacks!
I think we should all be talking in folksy aphorisms from here on out until the election by golly gosh! Heavens to Kellog’s Kornflakes! Palin thinks she’s a bowl of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup when you’ve got the winter flu.

That is great. It looks like he’s gesturing. Come this way!

I don’t know where you all are from, but I currently live in Oklahoma after living in liberal parts of St. Louis, MO for a long time. Obama is making no friends in my part of the country, and he certainly isn’t “pulling away”. I am by no means defending McCain, but you have to give credit that this race is not over.

She’s giving Dan Rather a run for the money.
A great picture. Too bad the teleprompters are there instead of…what? Still, a great picture, I agree with mcc.

Can you imagine McCain or Palin doing a rally in the open rain? They’d melt. I don’t even think Republicans would be willing to get rained on for anything, except maybe a lynching.

Interesting comments, including from my fellow Okie. The race may be done here, but we’re a small state (electoral college-wise, anyway) and the interesting question will be if there are enough racists to keep Inhofe.
About the picture (agreed, it IS electrifying), my first reaction was to embrace BO’s enthusiastic (defiant?) gesture in the face of a sh*tstorm of sleaze raining on him.

You’re looking at a man who REALLY wants to be president of this country.
As events spiral ever further out of control, I wonder more and more why. And sometimes I wonder what sort of deep passion drives him to do this and then so carefully keep such a quiet and low profile when he actually is called to governing. What sort of person is this who won’t give in to his urge to dance in the rain like a joyous kid? Is he concealing both his sense of humor and his sense of the absurd inside all that honorable committment? Is there no way our political process will permit him to roar with laughter and exhort the audience to join him in a dance in the pouring rain?
More seriously, where are the security people who should be standing over him with umbrellas?
The whole thing brings to my mind an interview I heard with him, this week sometime, in which he mentioned that he’d been on the phone for the entire week with Paulson trying to work out a decent resolution of the “bailout” issue. He said it as though he really didn’t think he needed to call attention to the fact that he was doing 5 campaign events across the midwest every day and still fulfilling his responsibilites as a Senator, while McCain was dropping all his public appearances and rushing off the DC to play the knight in shining armor.
And, of course, the Republicans have been excoriating him all week for just “phoning in”.
(I hope Callie had an umbrella and some assistant to hold it for her.)

Wall Street Journal reported a crowd of 26,000 at this event. They were getting wet too. They shared a deluge.

Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
(snip)
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

I love this post and photo. The comments above are interesting too, especially the question what sort of deep passion drives him to do this? I suspect we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of his genius and humor. Every true genius I’ve ever met said that their brilliance has a way of scaring people or making them jealous. He cannot risk this, being the frst black man running for President, so I think he keeps a lid on it. (Sigh) Of course, he’s human, prone to human error, as I am I to wishful thinking that he can lead our nation out of it’s terrible, terrible darkness. I pray he can and does, yet know he has so much to overcome.

I am glad you posted this one. I saw it last week but the image for some reason.
I find if joyful, actually. He is out there in the rain pushing on. However, were he in McCain’s position, it would be an entirely different metaphor. So I think this image resonates because he has just come through a storm after the Republican convention and it looked like the lies and the blatant pandering of Palin were going to overcome his campaign.

Scott, that says more about Oklahoma than Obama.
Much of the heartland likes to remain ignorant and proud of it, unfortunately.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…
…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.

You’re looking at a man who REALLY wants to be president of this country.
As events spiral ever further out of control, I wonder more and more why.
Well, it’s natural to wonder. I do too. Why would someone want to become responsible for getting this country out of the fucking mess it’s in?
Maybe because he loves it?
Maybe because he really wants to try to do it?
Maybe because he so believes in what he’s talking about that he thinks it will help, will work?
Let’s apply the same question to McCain. What are the answers there?
To take on a challenge that will probably kill him and leave the nation with an unproven VP to lead it?

What I see when I look at this picture is a commander leading his troops onward to victory, as seen from the trenches.

Just as Sergei sees a military commander, I’m reminded of the Civil War significance of Fredericksburg. The University of Mary Washington is located on Maryes Heights, where the Confederates looked down on the Union troops and defeated them soundly on December 13, 1862. The retreat became known as “The Mud March,” so we know that there had been rain. “Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!” became a rallying cry for the Federal troops who had done everything asked of them.
The campus website explains that while 12,000 of those who came to see and hear Obama and Biden were admitted onto the lawn, another 14,000 stood outside barricades and filled nearby streets.

To “g” — if we asked the same questions to McCain, he would tell us it’s because he wants to be a dictator. I’m quoting him.

With new hope.
We build new lives.
Why complain when it rains?
This is what it means to be free.
– Lawson Inada, Japanese American Historical Plaza, Portland, Oregon

a touch of Moses & two tablets inscribed Democracy & USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OETwbVBPI1U
(APB ~ Cactus, good art work accompanies this rendition)

Link to the the Dictator remark:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/01/mccain-aspire-dictator/

How interesting that a BartCop fan showed up here. They’re not usually so open-minded to free debate and discussion.

I think this video just about says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJpWivUO2A

I think the teleprompters are the key part of the image — after all, they form the base of the image’s triangle (with, oddly, or not, a halo at the top). And given downward angle of Obama’s head, he’s reading from one of them.
So, while we can imagine the audience seeing Obama’s gesture as inviting them in to shelter from the storm, or encouraging them to weather it, we can see directly that Obama has his eyes cast down to read from the script his handlers have given him — the “base” of all that he does, and the triangular structure shows so clearly.
Finally, the photo from the standpoint of a backstage insider — the press, who have caused so much trouble and destruction for so many years (see the Howler) letting us in on the joke.
Anyhow, I’ll be glad when this campaign is over. Hopefully, at some point, we’ll get back to the analysis BAGnews used to be famous for, instead of the hagiography exemplified by this post.

Transcendence:
The humanity of it, a single figure with arm raised, emerging from the din, from the black void, in the streaming rain, and rising above it all. Each raindrop filling every space, falling over every inch of flesh and sod, and yet the figure doesn’t seem drenched, blown away, flooded or even his shirt visually wet (even though we know it is). He seems to even transcend technology, as the telprompters are soaked and bending away from him.
Justice:
The figure, clothed in layers, with hand raised, up against the night sky, with shining shirt, almost literally posed as the statue of liberty. Promising a voice to all with his voice. And the black skin echos the civil rights era, nudges our memories.
Christ Figure:
The image seems ever so faintly religous, with the figure raising an “open” hand instead of one with a sword. This is no knight, but perhaps a prophet or teaching figure. There is no stiff armor, or army behind him, but a singular figure wearing a cotton shirt. Cotton, not iron. Neither is this a golden figure, nor adorned in gold, but plain and monotone.
Those are my impression with the photo, and I would have them no matter my party affiliation. I think this is good picture for the BAG, and disagree with the previous poster in that regard.