Fresh faces electrify delegates

By David S. Broder
The Washington Post

SPENCER PLATT / GETTY IMAGES Keynote speaker Barack Obama, a U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, tells Democrats, "We have real enemies in the world. They must be pursued — and they must be defeated. John Kerry knows this."

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Related stories Kennedy, Dean rouse faithful against Bush Ron Reagan makes pitch for stem-cell research Speech by Edwards an inkling of his role Other links Keynote speaker Barack Obama calls for unity Teresa Heinz Kerry on worldwide women's rights Preview of tonight’s events

BOSTON — On the second night of its national convention, the Democratic Party introduced two newcomers to the nation to set the themes John Kerry hopes will help him win the White House in 2004.

Teresa Heinz Kerry made an emotionally strong case for her husband as a "fighter" who knows the human costs of war and will not "mistake stubbornness for strength."

And in his debut on the national stage, Barack Obama, who is apparently on his way to victory in the Illinois Senate race, electrified the convention hall with a stirring speech touting American unity.

"I say to [Americans] tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America," he said. "There's the United States of America."

Kerry, Obama said, would heal the bitter divisions in the country and usher in "a politics of hope."

Heinz Kerry, a native of Mozambique and first-generation immigrant, and Obama, whose father was a Kenyan economist and mother a Kansas-born anthropologist, used their personal histories to sketch a version of the American dream they said had been compromised in the four years President Bush has been in office.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., shared the oratorical burden at the FleetCenter convention site with the two newcomers, but, to the surprise of many, failed to electrify the partisan audience as he had done so many times before.

Today's highlights 4-5 p.m.: U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, former presidential candidate 5-6 p.m.: Al Sharpton, former presidential candidate; Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, former presidential candidate 7-8 p.m.: Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Kerry's running mate, introduced by daughter Cate Edwards and wife, Elizabeth Edwards Time slots are approximate. Television coverage ABC, CBS and NBC will provide live coverage from 7-8 p.m. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC will provide live coverage with interviews and reports from 1-8 p.m., with post-convention reports after 8 p.m. C-SPAN will air gavel-to-gavel coverage from 1-8 p.m. PBS will air coverage from 5-8 p.m.

But his shortcomings were quickly forgotten as Obama, 42, stirred the crowd to repeated standing ovations and Heinz Kerry held it almost breathless with her soft-voiced talk.

Obama's address built in pace and power as it went on. When he reached his climax, the convention crowd was on its feet, cheering every phrase.

Adriana Martinez, a delegate from Las Vegas, said Obama was extraordinary. "Look at the energy he brought to this room," Martinez, 40, said a few minutes after Obama finished. "He is definitely a rising star."

Kerry's wife, noted for her spontaneous and often barbed comments, did not shy away from her reputation.

"My name is Teresa Heinz Kerry and by now, I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say," she said to laughter and cheers. Everyone was well aware she was in the news in recent days for telling an editor from a conservative newspaper that has been critical of her for years to "shove it."

And, although she did not use the word, she defined herself as a feminist. "My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called 'opinionated,' is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish. My only hope is that, one day soon, women — who have all earned the right to their opinions — instead of being labeled opinionated, will be called smart or well-informed."

Her remarks were met by wild applause.

Complete election and politics coverage. Step inside! · PoliBlog · Money watch · More...

Heinz Kerry greeted the audience in five languages, spoke out for the protection of the planet and made her case for why she thinks her husband would return the nation to one of moral leadership and endless potential that she had come here believing in after a childhood under dictatorship in Mozambique and student days in South Africa protesting against apartheid.

Heinz Kerry, 65, recalled how her father was able to vote for the first time when he was 73 years old.

Last night was her first opportunity to speak to the nation's public directly. Her introduction began with a biographical video that touched on her childhood as the daughter of a Portuguese oncologist based in East Africa, her first marriage, to Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., of Heinz ketchup fame, who died in a plane crash in 1991, and her union with Kerry, whom she got to know because of their mutual concerns on environmental issues.

In his speech, Obama implored the crowd to focus on those who need help most. "We are connected as one people," he said. "If there's a child on the South Side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother.

	AMY SANCETTA / AP Native American delegates from Washington, Lona Wilbur, left, of Swinomish, and Patricia Whitefoot of White Swan, listen to the national anthem, sung in the traditional Tohono O'odham language, in Boston yesterday.

"If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work."

Obama criticized the journalistic shorthand of red states (Republican) and blue states (Democratic).

"I've got news for them, too," he said. "We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

Obama, a state senator from Chicago who easily captured the Democratic Senate nomination in his first bid for statewide office and now finds himself without a Republican opponent for an open Republican seat, wove his personal biography into an invocation of the American dream. The honors graduate of Harvard Law School and first black editor of the Harvard Law Review said that "in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."

Obama's father was a goatherder in Africa who won a scholarship to study in the United States. He described his mother's youth in Kansas, raised by a couple who built a good life with educations they obtained through the GI Bill and a home they got with a federal loan.

He was born in Hawaii and raised in the sprawl of Jakarta, Indonesia. "My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation," Obama said.

Wading into a controversy in the African-American community opened by recent speeches by Bill Cosby, Obama added, "Go into any inner-city neighborhood and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white."

In the hours leading up to his speech, Obama was the convention's hottest political celebrity, with a horde of reporters and photographers following his every move. Autograph hounds handed him everything from baseball caps to bumper stickers to sign.

"I need five Baracks today," lamented his press secretary, Julian Green. "Everyone wants a piece of him. This is crazy, man."

Obama is a bit taken aback by his meteoric rise. "I haven't changed," he said recently. "It's the situation that's changed. I'm still just me."

Material from the Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and The Dallas Morning News is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More nation & world headlines...