Obama Adopts Message of Realism in Re-Election Campaign
This article is for subscribers only.
For all their pageantry and excitement, the party conventions are among the most tightly scripted events in American politics. Yet surprises still happen.
One of the biggest was Barack Obama’s 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. On the morning of his speech, a headline in a Philadelphia newspaper read, “Who the Heck is This Guy?” A day later, his vision of a politics beyond party labels made Obama, then the Illinois Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, instantly famous.