I like Barak Obama’s eloquence. I think it’s wonderful that his oratory works well in the notoriously cool medium of television. And this gives me a chance to recommend the late Kenneth Cmiel’s fine book Democratic Eloquence. In his last chapter, Cmiel observes that “It is a deep theme of literary modernism that language is exhausted.” One might expand the remark to include modernism generally. And maybe Obama excites me not just because he seems postpartisan, but because his language seems capable of reinvigorating public discourse as well. I realize that may be too much to expect, but it’s exciting to think about it.

Obama’s oratorical persona appropriates the romantic eloquence of Martin Luther King, with an edge that King lacked. I’m also very impressed with Obama’s skill as a debater, perhaps moreso than Kathleen Hall Jamieson on last Friday’s Bill Moyers Journal. In the New Hampshire Democrats’ debate on Saturday, I thought Obama answered questions definitely and sharply as they were put and at one point fended off an accusation of disingenuousness from Clinton really well by pointing out that Clinton had taken him to task over something about which they disagreed, explaining precisely and succinctly what the disagreement was, and pointing out that disagreement isn’t dishonesty. If I’m right Obama may be something like post ad hominem.

Elsewhere, James Fallows notes what he calls the essential exchange in the New Hampshire debate as follows.

Clinton, after pointing out that Obama voted for an energy bill that was full of the special-interest tax breaks he now criticizes in speeches:

So you know, words are not actions.

And as beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are, they are not action. You know, what we’ve got to do is translate talk into action and feeling into reality. I have a long record of doing that, of taking on the very interests that you have just rightly excoriated because of the overdue influence that they have in our government. And you know, probably nobody up here has been the subject of more incoming fire from the Republicans and the special interests, so I think I know exactly what I’m walking into and I am prepared to take them on.

Then, after an appeal by John Edwards to the Teddy Roosevelt tradition of head-on trust-busting, this response from Obama:

Look, I think it’s easier to be cynical and just say, “You know what, it can’t be done because Washington’s designed to resist change.” But in fact there have been periods of time in our history where a president inspired the American people to do better, and I think we’re in one of those moments right now. I think the American people are hungry for something different and can be mobilized around big changes — not incremental changes, not small changes….

[T]he truth is actually words do inspire. Words do help people get involved. Words do help members of Congress get into power so that they can be part of a coalition to deliver health care reform, to deliver a bold energy policy. Don’t discount that power, because when the American people are determined that something is going to happen, then it happens. And if they are disaffected and cynical and fearful and told that it can’t be done, then it doesn’t. I’m running for president because I want to tell them, yes, we can. And that’s why I think they’re responding in such large numbers.

I’m indebted to Laura Mckenna at 11D for the Fallows reference. After quoting Obama’s remarks noted above, McKenna observes that “Obama just won the election.” I don’t think I’m quite that sanguine (though I’d like to be). My own thoughts are more in line with Fallows’ analysis of the Clinton/Obama exchange:

Of course each of them was right. Each expressed part of the job of a president, or any leader. Words and deeds. Talk and action. Poetry and prose. Presidents obviously do best when they can do both.

But only Obama captured what is unique about a president’s role. A President’s actions matter — Lyndon Johnson with his legislation, Richard Nixon with his opening to China — but lots of other people can help shape policies. A President’s words often matter more, and only he — or she — can express them.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson had said pretty much the same thing on Bill Moyers Journal.

We forget sometimes that speech making is a very important role in the presidency. There are times in the nation in which the president is the only one who can speak to us and for us. And whether it’s the president we wanted elected or not, that person has to be able to play that role for all of us.

Apropos of saying the same thing somebody else has said, Dana Milbank has a piece in today’s Washington Post that makes a good deal of fun out of the candidates’ linguistic borrowing from one another (more nearly drawing on the same stock of clichés, I think, though I too have thought that the other candidates were echoing Obama). Milbank wryly points out at the end:

Of course, it isn’t all an echo of Obama. Clinton spoke of Mario Cuomo, the “wonderful former governor of New York [who] used to say that in politics, you campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.”

Obama never used that line. Bill Clinton did — in 1993.

There’s a good deal for Democrats to be happy about right now, not the least item of which is a field of presidential candidates all of whom are good. Then there’s the fact that all the candidates, Democrats and Republicans too, seem to be trying to ride Obama’s coattails. And finally, there’s this:

Right on! as we used to say.