NORFOLK, VA. — Barack Obama is known for his eloquent speeches, but as he tries to regain his lead in the polls and beat back an energized Republican ticket, he is adding something new to his delivery: volume.
Obama has uncorked some thunderous lines in recent campaign stops, showing a measure of emotion the normally unflappable candidate has seldom displayed. His speeches are now laced with indignation as he argues that anyone who sees John McCain and Sarah Palin as vehicles for change is being duped.
At ear-splitting decibels, he pressed his point Monday that people could pay a heavy price if they make the wrong decision on election day. At stake are constitutional liberties that can mean the difference between freedom and unjustified imprisonment, he told the crowd in Farmington Hills, Mich.
"We may think this is Mohammed the terrorist; it might be Mohammed the cabdriver. You may think it's Barack the bomb-thrower. But it might be Barack the guy running for president," he said, referring to the Bush administration's controversial arrest and detention policies toward terrorism suspects.
Then the loudspeakers really began to quake.
"Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it! Don't suggest that it's un-American to abide by what the Founding Fathers set up! It's worked pretty well for over 200 years!"
Finally, he said disdainfully of the Republicans: "These people."
Feistiness is what many Democratic elected officials have longed to see. At the Democratic convention in Denver last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Obama needed to show more fight. But he also suggested Obama knew as much. "You're going to see a new, fighting Barack," Rendell predicted.
That they're seeing. Compare the Obama today with what voters saw before the Democratic and Republican conventions: Campaigning in Montana on the July 4 holiday, Obama also talked about the right to challenge one's detention, but said it in terms that were not only milder but also more abstract. Sounding more like the constitutional law professor he once was, he made no attempt to humanize the issue by invoking "Mohammed the cabdriver" or "Barack the bomb-thrower."
"And that's why it's right that we restore habeas corpus," he said at the outdoor rally in Butte. "We send a message to the world that we stand for something here."
