Echoes of '04

The motivations and intented audience for Barack Obama's Father's Day speech have been getting some of the attention as a byline to the death of Tim Russert.

I suspected that the speech was intended by Obama to show that his words give better insight into his values than the "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright. This speech given on Sunday was Obama at his iconoclastic best. His comment regarding the absence of black fathers from the lives of their families is very similar to the speech that Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention where he spoke about the "slander" that a black child with a book is "acting white." It is the kind of truth that only a black man in the United States could have experienced and speak honestly about.

I don't think that he was really trying to get to men, he may really be that sincere, but his speech will have a greater effect on women. Women seem to be a weakness in the Obama supporters, it may be Single mothers, older women, the Hillary Clinton pantsuit-set, this is what they all want to hear. An appeal to values, about family, and responsibility.

It's almost conservative. Family values has been a rallying cry for the GOP, it's popular and is usually very effective in bringing voters to your side. This definitely doesn't hurt Obama in any significant way that I can see, it will be interesting to see how much it helps Obama with older white voters, specifically women.

It's post-racial, post-feminist,