Presidential candidate Barack Obama stepped out of a black SUV outside Washington Square Park last night and begin glad-handing his way through the crowd. Smiling dazedly without locking eyes, he seemed more reserved than Bill Clinton, who I’m told sprouts tentacles of personal interest. But he was late for his rally and reportedly battling the flu.

Rally organizers were turning away people without tickets. The park was dripping with thousands of Obama supporters and curious passers-by. I fell in step with a curly-haired desi guy who flashed a reservation printout and got both of us waved through. Score one for helpin’ a brotha.

The rally seemed designed around TV angles. The candidate spoke in front of the park’s monument, which evokes Marble Arch, with the Empire State Building thrusting through its arc. Obama is a far more polished orator than most politicians. But listening to his speech was like flowing a 1AR: it was full of coded responses to competitors and media narratives.

Obama repeatedly mentioned his imperfectness as a husband and as a candidate. It seemed non sequitur, but it was designed to inoculate him against the framing of being a whiz kid, a golden boy in a bubble. He entered on a Kanye West song and exited on achingly emo rock. He chose downtown by NYU rather than uptown by Columbia, where the closeness of Harlem would have raised inconvenient questions about racial loyalties. But his populism was race-neutral. He name-checked Oakland, California, and a small town in South Carolina, while talking about the growing rich-poor gap.

Certain themes remained constant: his anti-Iraq war vote. His demand for withdrawal by March ‘08. His insistence that America must not torture. A call to rethink our foreign policy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. His proposal to extend Congress’ health plan benefits to the uninsured.

Some desi rally-goers finished the evening at Indian Bread Company. These obliging college-age Obamans fretted that the afterparty might be full of old people over 25. (Shaking first) Damn kids. Don’t you know it’s past our bedtimes?

Obama on withdrawing from Iraq:

We’ve got to get… all our combat troops home by March 30th of next year… But George Bush vetoed that timetable… I guarantee you as president of the United States, the first thing I will do when I take office is call together the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to say, ‘You have a new mission, and that is to get out our troops as quickly and as safely as possible…’ There is no military solution to be had in Iraq.

On Guantánamo and torture:

We are not a nation that sends prisoners off in the dead of night to other countries to be tortured… We stand for something… We’re a bright and shining light when we stand up for our ideals and our convictions. And that’s what iss at stake in this election…

On Iran:

… We also have to talk to our enemies. I got into a real back-and-forth with the senator from New York about this, that ‘you’re naïve, that’s irresponsible, you can’t meet with these folks.’ I believe what John F. Kennedy said, which is, we should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate.

The end of the speech:

Fire it up! Ready to go! Fire it up! Ready to go! … Let’s go change the world.

For all his caution and policy imperfections, Obama is America’s last firewall against yet another political dynasty (Bhutto, Gandhi, Bush, Clinton) taking over.

Help us, Obi-wan. You’re our only hope.

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