Obama’s Most Beautiful Speech: The Best Is Yet to Come

Obama and the most beautiful speech: “The best is yet to come.” An example for us, too.

An American anthem. Not blue or red states, but the “United States.” God, country and family on the lips of a multiracial progressive. Hats off!

“The best is yet to come.” Barack Obama gives Boston* his best speech since the one that launched him in his long run for the White House at the age of 47. Today he is 51, and in four years, at 55, he will have been President of the United States of America for eight years. The largest and most powerful democratic nation in the world.

He won. After a tight race, a head-to-head race that has lasted through the night until the decisive conquest of Ohio, the heart of the Midwest that gave Barack the victory. Even this was as expected. You can almost say that Marchionne, our reviled Marchionne [chief executive of Fiat and Chrysler], had a part in Obama’s re-election to the White House. The fatal error of Romney was to attack Obama for helping the auto industry. The resurrection of Chrysler, thanks to Fiat, convinced Americans that Obama is credible.

Despite the crisis, he did the right thing. In spite of four somewhat disappointing years, in spite of a campaign in which he trailed at times, the fatigue of power, the disenchantment and disillusionment of broken dreams in the reality of a difficult world, burdened by global competition with hard, invasive giants like China. The pro-Obama ad where Marchionne assured people that auto production would not be outsourced to Asia fit in with the Democratic political program.

“Forward” and “real change” are Obama’s key words (by the way, how different is [Prime Minister] Monti’s idea, built on the sad need to counter the comedians boarding the Palace and promoting robot finance, that they do not want to submit to a democratic vote?).

Let us learn from America. The competition was tough and open on all fronts. But absent were the poisons of the Italian battles with wiretaps, lawsuits and media campaigns. Real debate prevailed on the issues. First of all, schools, training and education. Energy policy, industrial energy policy. And taxes. And foreign policy. Facts. With an eye to the future, not the past. With the constant reminder of the values, which we could see even in Obama’s victory speech, an anthem to family: his family and the American family.

To the First Lady, Michelle: “I’ve never loved you more, and I’m so proud that America loves you.”** The country “of which I am proud to be the president,” based on a “compassionate” vision but also on “duty and patriotism.” And again: “We are not cynical, we are greater than the sum of our parts. We’re not the red or blue states, we are the United States of America. God bless America.” God, country and family on the lips of a multi-racial progressive. There will be time to think about politics and how American foreign policy will or will not change, or about economic policy (the search for the point of balance between rigor and growth, with the courage of expensive investment plans to get things started again). For now, it is sufficient to contemplate with envy the sight of a country that has chosen its leader and that is facing its global challenges with the knowledge of its own strength and its own unity.

*Editor’s Note: Obama gave his acceptance speech in Chicago, Illinois. It was Romney who gave his concession speech in Boston.

** Editor’s Note: The original quote from Obama: “I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady.”