Barack Obama paid my neighborhood a visit last night. I’d have offered him something to drink, maybe a dog on the grill if he was up for it, but it wasn’t that kind of visit. We watched the motorcade of 5 rolling disco troopers, two buses, and some number of cars from the bluff overlooking the Mississippi just where they all turned towards the large Xcel Center arena and the bubbling crowds.

What did he say when he became the nominee apparent? Not much. Like his motorcade speeding along Shepard Road, the whole event was nothing more than a careful restatement of the obvious. The motorcade said, “We are in a hurry”. The speech said, “I won”.

Most of what passes for politics these days is nothing more than a restatement of the obvious in ways that allow people to get past their denial and accept the situation. It seems a bit pathetic to realize this, but the alternative is happy-talk aimed at avoiding sacrifice. That’s what we had for many years and it’s gotten us into a deep hole. Hearing our politicos state the obvious, even if carefully, is some kind of improvement.

The same evening, Sen. Clinton made a speech where she handled the obvious in her own boastful way. The statement she needed to make was, “My people need proper care and feeding.” The way it came out, however, was unartfully clever, as “I had more of the popular vote.” Well, if we want to see this a certain way and count this but not that and � who the Hell cares? The obvious point, “I have some power”, became something more like “Pay attention to me!” No wonder she lost.

Obama and McCain have at least one thing in common; they both make the obvious sound fresh and new. Their sense of the obvious is different enough that there will still be plenty to fight over. Obama will want to stay as cool as he did tonight in Saint Paul, but I’m sure he’ll be forced to mix it up sometime.

Mostly, he tells us what we should and do already know, however. People work hard and often get screwed. Racial problems only get better when people want them to. People around the world fear us far more than they respect us. Sometimes, this litany bothers the Hell out of me and I worry about the lack of “substance”. But this is the substance that fills the place where people’s lives meet their government. It’s simple, obvious stuff – nothing fancy, nothing all that hard.

It seems strange that good politics has become all about the obvious, but it appears to be working. It is jarring our journey though life like a trooper coming up behind us fast with the lights on. Are we going too fast? Did we do something wrong?

Not necessarily. It’s just the motorcade speeding by. All that fuss says, “Get out of our way”. The best messages are so obvious they can be conveyed with nothing more than a disco light or a few simple words. It may seem rather dull to talk about the obvious so much, but it’s better than ignoring it in the end.