Sen. Barack Obama addresses a crowd of about 2,500 in Greenville, SC. Photo by Adam Hillberry

“They call me a hope monger. That’s OK because that’s how change happens...” – Barack Obama

By Adam Hillberry

Sen. Barack Obama took his campaign to Greenville, SC, giving a speech to about 2,500 people in McAllister Plaza, where he discussed his beginning in law and civil service, his issues on education, government service to the people and a new brand of politics.

“I know some of you thought there was a sale going on in the mall. All we’re selling is hope here. We’re selling change here. We’re selling a new kind of politics,” Obama said.

Nelson Weston, a Southside High School student, introduced Obama to the rally. “I would like to introduce to you a man who believes in the power of a strong family; that strong families raise exceptional children and keep our communities together,” said Weston, 17, the newly elected student body president of his high school in Greenville. “A man who believes that our public schools need more than just money. I will turn 18 before the general election next fall, and so, Senator Obama, I would like you to know that it would be my great honor to cast my first vote for you as the next president of the United States of America.”

Behind Obama, approximately thirty students from Furman University, North Carolina State University, Wofford College, University of South Carolina, Greenville Technical College, Boston College, Univeristy of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Duke University, Clemson University and University of North Carolina Asheville stood holding posters and cheered during his speech.

The reasons people are coming out to support him are not because of his political campaign, according to Obama.

“I have to tell you that it is not just about a political campaign when I see these crowds like this crowd today and I see the faces of people in the audience of every different walk of life,” Obama said. “When I see a gathering of all the different groups that make up this country, I have a chance to shake hands and give folks love and listen to their stories, what I realize is that people are coming out because there’s something stirring in the air all across America.”

The stirring is a new demand for change in everyone’s lives, according to Obama. “There’s a hunger for change in America. People want to see us live up to the meaning of our creed,” Obama said. “People want to see us express our values and our ideas and they recognize they have an opportunity this year and next year to bring about the kind of transformation in America that is so long overdue.”

Not originally from Chicago, Obama said he moved there after college because he had been inspired by the civil rights movement.

“I had been inspired by the images of young people, straight-backed, clear-eyed, making a determination to make their lives better. I remember watching the newsreels of them sitting at lunch counters and getting on buses, coming down because they want to march for freedom or go to jail for freedom or sit at a lunch counter for freedom,” Obama said. “I was too young to participate, I was just 4 years old at the time. But I said to myself that somehow I wanted to be part of that process of making for a better America.”

Obama supporters crowd McAllister Plaza in Greenville, SC. Photo by Adam Hillberry

During his struggle to develop his campaign as a state senator in Illinois, people approached him asking why he would get involved in government. This attitude is one he tries to confront with his campaign.

“Why would anybody want to go into something very nasty like politics? And we understand the question because we all have come to feel the same about politics. Seems as if politics is a business and not a mission. We feel as if our leadership is long on leverage but short on follow through. So we get discouraged,” Obama said. “Half of us don’t vote. The half that does vote usually are voting against somebody instead of for somebody. We don’t have a lot of confidence that the government is going to make a meaningful difference in our lives. But when I said this is the same thing that is the sorry point or the premise of this presidential campaign and that is that there’s always another prediction of politics.”

There’s always been a different, a better idea of politics, according to Obama.

“An idea expressed very simply as saying we’re connected as a people. As much as we admire our individualism and our self-reliance and as important as that is to who we are as Americans, equally important is the notion that we’ve got a stake in each other. That we’ve got mutual responsibilities for each other.”

Obama said the common goals of Americans are what bind us together towards a new brand of politics and these values must be expressed in government as well.

“We’ve got bonds that tie us together. They are bonds that will bend but won’t break between Americans regardless of race and faith and station,” Obama said. “That notion that I am my brothers keeper, I am my sisters keeper has to express itself not just in our churches. It doesn’t just express itself through our religious institutions, not even just through our family or our workplace or our immediate neighborhood. It has to express itself through our government.”

These ideas are not the same as those coming from our government in recent years, according to Obama.

“The message we get from Washington is I can’t do, won’t do, won’t even try solid government. The message we get from Washington is you are on your own. If you are somebody who has worked for twenty, thirty years in a plant and someday your job gets shipped overseas and you’ve got the rug pulled out from under you, and you don’t just lose your job, you lose your healthcare, you lose your pension, you’re trying to compete with your teenage kids for the seven dollars an hour at the local fast food joint,” Obama said. “Our government has said those are the breaks, you’re on your own. I am here to say today, Greenville, you’re not on your own. We are in this together.”

Obama said he is tired of the politics based on being afraid but prefers one centered on hope, though he gets scrutinized for talking this way.

“I want a politics that is based on hope. I don’t want a politics on what divides us. I want a politics based on what unifies us. Sometimes, when I talk this way, the reporters sometimes will call me naive. All he does is talk about hope,”Obama said. “They call me a hope monger.

That’s OK because that’s how change happens. Because we’ve got to imagine something better. We can’t always see it right in front of us.

That’s how we start to organize; that’s how we mobilize. We keep hope alive.”