Reply #76: HM, you are right in suggesting it is patterned after MLK. [View All]

[BenDavid]

Obama's new stump speech continues his oratorical practice, patterned after Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, wherein identical lead-in words, followed by slight shifts in meaning, are repeated at the beginning of a series of sentences, most notably at or near the close of a delivery. Then, as a political altar call, Obama moves into his close with a five-fold repetition of "believe."
Barack Obama has made the most effective use of speech patterns from American church sermonizing. As Obama did in his Jefferson-Jackson Day speech, he invoked Dr. King's phrase, "the fierce urgency of now," as a key concept of his candidacy. He used it again on Meet The Press, December 30th. We will likely hear it again, and often.
Three of the five historical illustrations chosen by Obama's speech writers are race-related. That can be no accident. One illustration blatantly promotes revisionist history. Abraham Lincoln resisted Confederate succession with force of arms not to free the slaves, but to save the Union. Putting aside whether it yields him the votes to win, is there anything worthy of criticism with regard to Senator Barak Obama's somewhat oblique playing of the race card? As an informed voter, that's for you to answer.