A Campaign of Hope

Sen. Barack Obama addresses a crowd of about 2,500 in Greenville, SC. Photo by Adam Hillberry

“They call me a hope monger. That’s OK because that’s how change happens…” – Barack Obama

By Adam Hillberry

Sen. Barack
Obama took his campaign to Greenville, SC, giving a speech to about
2,500 people in McAllister Plaza, where he discussed his beginning in
law and civil service, his issues on education, government service to
the people and a new brand of politics.

“I know some
of you thought there was a sale going on in the mall. All we’re selling
is hope here. We’re selling change here. We’re selling a new kind of
politics,” Obama said.

Nelson Weston, a
Southside High School student, introduced Obama to the rally. “I would
like to introduce to you a man who believes in the power of a strong
family; that strong families raise exceptional children and keep our
communities together,” said Weston, 17, the newly elected student body
president of his high school in Greenville. “A man who believes that
our public schools need more than just money. I will turn 18 before the
general election next fall, and so, Senator Obama, I would like you to
know that it would be my great honor to cast my first vote for you as
the next president of the United States of America.”

Behind Obama, approximately thirty students from Furman University,
North Carolina State University, Wofford College, University of South
Carolina, Greenville Technical College, Boston College, Univeristy of
North Carolina Chapel Hill, Duke University, Clemson University and
University of North Carolina Asheville stood holding posters and
cheered during his speech.

The reasons people are coming out to support him are not because of his political campaign, according to Obama.

“I have to tell you that it is not just about a political campaign when
I see these crowds like this crowd today and I see the faces of people
in the audience of every different walk of life,” Obama said. “When I
see a gathering of all the different groups that make up this country,
I have a chance to shake hands and give folks love and listen to their
stories, what I realize is that people are coming out because there’s
something stirring in the air all across America.”

The stirring is a new demand for change in everyone’s lives, according
to Obama. “There’s a hunger for change in America. People want to see
us live up to the meaning of our creed,” Obama said. “People want to
see us express our values and our ideas and they recognize they have an
opportunity this year and next year to bring about the kind of
transformation in America that is so long overdue.”

Not originally from Chicago, Obama said he moved there after college because he had been inspired by the civil rights movement.

“I had been inspired by the images of young people, straight-backed,
clear-eyed, making a determination to make their lives better. I
remember watching the newsreels of them sitting at lunch counters and
getting on buses, coming down because they want to march for freedom or
go to jail for freedom or sit at a lunch counter for freedom,” Obama
said. “I was too young to participate, I was just 4 years old at the
time. But I said to myself that somehow I wanted to be part of that
process of making for a better America.”

Obama supporters crowd McAllister Plaza in Greenville, SC. Photo by Adam Hillberry

During his struggle to develop his campaign as a state senator in
Illinois, people approached him asking why he would get involved in
government. This attitude is one he tries to confront with his campaign.

“Why would anybody want to go into something very nasty like politics?
And we understand the question because we all have come to feel the
same about politics. Seems as if politics is a business and not a
mission. We feel as if our leadership is long on leverage but short on
follow through. So we get discouraged,” Obama said. “Half of us don’t
vote. The half that does vote usually are voting against somebody
instead of for somebody. We don’t have a lot of confidence that the
government is going to make a meaningful difference in our lives. But
when I said this is the same thing that is the sorry point or the
premise of this presidential campaign and that is that there’s always
another prediction of politics.”

There’s always been a different, a better idea of politics, according to Obama.

“An idea expressed very simply as saying we’re connected as a people.
As much as we admire our individualism and our self-reliance and as
important as that is to who we are as Americans, equally important is
the notion that we’ve got a stake in each other. That we’ve got mutual
responsibilities for each other.”

Obama said the common goals of Americans are what bind us together
towards a new brand of politics and these values must be expressed in
government as well.

“We’ve got bonds that tie us together. They are bonds that will bend
but won’t break between Americans regardless of race and faith and
station,” Obama said. “That notion that I am my brothers keeper, I am
my sisters keeper has to express itself not just in our churches. It
doesn’t just express itself through our religious institutions, not
even just through our family or our workplace or our immediate
neighborhood. It has to express itself through our government.”

These ideas are not the same as those coming from our government in recent years, according to Obama.

“The message we get from Washington is I can’t do, won’t do, won’t even
try solid government. The message we get from Washington is you are on
your own. If you are somebody who has worked for twenty, thirty years
in a plant and someday your job gets shipped overseas and you’ve got
the rug pulled out from under you, and you don’t just lose your job,
you lose your healthcare, you lose your pension, you’re trying to
compete with your teenage kids for the seven dollars an hour at the
local fast food joint,” Obama said. “Our government has said those are
the breaks, you’re on your own. I am here to say today, Greenville,
you’re not on your own. We are in this together.”

Obama said he is tired of the politics based on being afraid but
prefers one centered on hope, though he gets scrutinized for talking
this way.

“I want a politics that is based on hope. I don’t want a politics on
what divides us. I want a politics based on what unifies us. Sometimes,
when I talk this way, the reporters sometimes will call me naive. All
he does is talk about hope,”Obama said. “They call me a hope monger.

That’s OK because that’s how change happens. Because we’ve got to
imagine something better. We can’t always see it right in front of us.

That’s how we start to organize; that’s how we mobilize. We keep hope
alive.”