Obama at J-J Dinner

For those who want to hear less about "hope" and more about his policy agenda, Barack Obama's Jefferson-Jackson Day speech in Virginia was full of that kind of thing. Personally, I think it's probably a mistake for a speech to turn into two much of a laundry-list, but if you really want to see his agenda spelled out in some detail, the Blueprint for Change document has it in spades. My guess is that about none of the people who purport to be troubled by his lack of specifics have read this, but who knows? Certainly, it meets any possible standard of plodding earnestness that one might want.

I liked this line from Obama a lot:

It’s a choice between debating John McCain about who has the most experience in Washington, or debating him about who’s most likely to change Washington. Because that’s a debate we can win.

That seems right to me. Electability issues are fuzzy and who knows. But as someone who participates in political arguments for a living, the debate Obama is proposing strikes me as a more inviting one than the debate Clinton is proposing.