The stadium-sized acceptance speech that Barack Obama gave tonight has been compared to those of FDR and JFK, but the note he struck by the speech's end reminded me of a Republican: Ronald Reagan.

Obama's Denver speech was a mirror image of Reagan's acceptance speech in 1980, in which the California governor called for an end to big government:

As your nominee, I pledge to restore to the federal government the capacity to do the people's work without dominating their lives. I pledge to you a government that will not only work well, but wisely; its ability to act tempered by prudence and its willingness to do good balanced by the knowledge that government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

Reagan was riding a wave of popular protest against government waste and excess. Obama spoke tonight at a time when a lack of good government — from a crippled FEMA to shoddy bridge maintenance to unaffordable health care to unscrupulous military subcontractors — is the problem. Big government "harms," Reagan said, and to that Obama answered tonight: So does an impotent government.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves — protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

(In his defense of government, Obama also channeled Roosevelt's "rendezvous with destiny" acceptance speech: "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.")

Reagan's 1980 acceptance speech chastised the Carter administration for breaking the compact between elected leaders and the people, by betraying the values of the American people:

"Trust me" government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs — in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their elected leaders. That kind of relationship, between the people and their elected leaders, is a special kind of compact.

Obama, too, talked of the disconnect between Washington's leaders and the American people, but he gave this sentiment a more populist slant. His candidacy, he declared, was about people rising up on behalf of a new politics — not placing their trust in a leader, but bringing about change themselves:

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us — that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it — because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

Reagan spoke of an "American spirit" that transcends the differences that divide Americans, that rests in hard work and love of freedom:

Tonight, let us dedicate ourselves to renewing the American compact. I ask you not simply to "Trust me," but to trust your values — our values — and to hold me responsible for living up to them. I ask you to trust that American spirit which knows no ethnic, religious, social, political, regional, or economic boundaries; the spirit that burned with zeal in the hearts of millions of immigrants from every corner of the Earth who came here in search of freedom.

Some say that spirit no longer exists. But I have seen it — I have felt it — all across the land; in the big cities, the small towns and in rural America. The American spirit is still there, ready to blaze into life if you and I are willing to do what has to be done; the practical, down-to-earth things that will stimulate our economy, increase productivity and put America back to work. The time is now to resolve that the basis of a firm and principled foreign policy is one that takes the world as it is and seeks to change it by leadership and example; not by harangue, harassment or wishful thinking.

Obama invoked again this "American spirit," this unifying creed built on the backs of immigrants, but he emphasized its moral and spiritual dimension, in Americans' constant striving toward the immaterial, the "unseen":

Instead, it is that American spirit — that American promise — that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours — a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

Finally, Obama's speech, like Reagan's, was a direct appeal to national unity, attempting to bridge an intensely partisan political landscape. Reagan, who as president would draw fierce criticism for policies hostile to minorities, reached out explicitly to them in his acceptance speech — "When those in leadership give us tax increases and tell us we must also do with less, have they thought about those who have always had less — especially the minorities?" He broadly appealed to "Democrats, Independents, and Republicans" with an optimistic message that combined the moral tenets of American liberalism and conversatism: compassion and personal responsibility, "the shared values of family, work, neighborhood, peace and freedom" — while making the conservative case that American could be more compassionate if government was less powerful.

Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy; to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families; to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them.

Let us pledge to restore, in our time, the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative; a spirit that flows like a deep and mighty river through the history of our nation.

Obama, too, sought to downplay political differences, while making overtures to a segment of the electorate skeptical of Democrats: national security voters. "Patriotism has no party," he said. "Democrats and Republicans and Independents" fighting abroad "have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America."

In a nod to conservatives, he spoke of the importance of both "individual responsibility and mutual responsibility" — even as his political purpose was to emphasize the latter, casting the moral imperative of compassion in biblical language:

That's the promise of America — the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

"I believe that this generation of Americans today has a rendezvous with destiny," Reagan said in his 1980 speech, an explicit reference to FDR's 1936 convention speech. Now Obama has taken the rhetoric of Reagan and used it in the service of a diametrical vision of compassionate government and shared prosperity.

Obama has himself talked about how Reagan "changed the trajectory" of America, and it seems that Obama desires to lead a similar transformation of the country's politics — though in the opposite ideological direction. The echoes of Reagan in his acceptance speech suggest that he already has this goal in mind.

So, if the 2004 election was a repeat of the Goldwater-LBJ election, perhaps 2008 will be a replaying of the 1980 election: an unpopular president succeeded by a charismatic leader, who brings a new consensus to national politics. We will have to wait three months to see whether Obama has his rendezvous with destiny.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Pringles are not potatoes. And now Hershey's Kissables are no longer "candy coated milk chocolate," but "chocolate candy."

From the Candy Blog [via Consumerist]:

The new version is called Chocolate Candy which is code for chocolate-flavored confection, or candy that contains chocolate but can’t be called chocolate because it has other stuff in it that’s not permitted by the FDA definitions (like more oil than actual chocolate).

That's not the only Hershey's chocolate whose chocolate has been diluted, apparently:

It strikes me as odd that Hershey’s new Pure Chocolate campaign comes on the heels of their attempts to dilute the definition of chocolate and have changed the formulation on many of their favorite candies (5th Avenue & Whatchamacallit) to include new coatings that are not pure chocolate any longer.  

What's next? Non-corn Corn Flakes? Non-wheat Wheat Thins? Non-cheese Cheese Whiz? (Okay, maybe you already have your doubts about that last one.)

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Political strategists think alike, and their Machiavellian mindset leads them without fail to the low road of branding their opponent as unpatriotic, un-American, and vaguely French. That's the takeaway from leaked emails by Mark Penn, former top strategist of the Clinton campaign, who it turns out suggested an uber-patriotic approach to Clinton that the McCain camp has taken up, with gusto, in the last several weeks of the presidential campaign.

The New York Times has an excerpt from a soon-to-be-published article in The Atlantic, which includes hundreds of leaked emails from the Clinton campaign. Here is one choice bit of Penn advice:

All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.

Save it for 2050. … Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America American to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back …

Let’s explicitly own "American" in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds.

McCain's campaign seems to be following this script line by line. His campaign has adopted a new slogan, "Country First," and his campaign ads and statements in recent weeks — especially since Obama's Berlin speech — have highlighted Obama's celebrity appeal to foreigners, and accused the Illinois senator of being unpatriotic.

Things get complicated by the race issue. For example, in an ABC News interview after Obama's Berlin speech, one McCain supporter made a point of mentioning how McCain was "all-American" and "one of us." Those could be references to Obama's lack of patriotism — or they could be code words for race. 

Intentionally or not, McCain's current line of attack strikes both of these lightning rods. His strategists, like Penn, know that "international" and "American" are mutually exclusive terms in this country's politics — even if trends of globalization mean that, in the "real world," American and global interests look increasingly alike.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

A reader E. commented on my post, "The politics of Pringles," asking whether the claims in it were true. I wasn’t sure if E. was talking about the post itself or another reader comment, which claimed that the food we eat is made from petroleum. In any case, here are the facts on both claims:

Are Pringles potato chips, or some potato-like substance in a can?

The latter. Their potato content is less than 50 percent, and Procter & Gamble, the maker of Pringles, has itself argued in a British court that the Pringle cannot be considered a "potato crisp" (the British term for "potato chip"). For corroboration, see the links in my previous post, or this BBC article. 

Now, there is a silly Internet rumor floating around that Pringles are made from leftover McDonald’s French fries, which is untrue, as this post at urbanlegends.about.com makes clear. That said, there is also a lot of funny business that goes into making McDonald’s French fries taste so good, as you can read here.

Is our food made from petroleum?

It depends on what you mean by "made from."

Today’s industrial farms grow crops like corn and wheat using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, both of which are derived from petroleum. Fossil fuels are also needed to plow and irrigate the fields and ship the harvest to market. (See this New York Times article about how rising fuel costs are hurting American farmers.)

So, our food is made using lots and lots of petroleum. Even in organic industrial agriculture, the fossil-fuel tab is considerable: Michael Pollan says that the 80 calories of energy in a single, one-pound box of lettuce requires the burning of 4,600 calories of fossil fuels to produce and ship.

Is petroleum actually in our food?

If you are like most Americans and eat food with artificial dyes in it, then yes.

Synthetic food dyes are "derived primarily from petroleum and coal sources," according to the Food and Drug Administration. In fact, this U.S. News article points out that the fears about the ill effects that petroleum- and coal-based artificial dyes may have on children are prompting companies to switch to natural, carmine-based dyes. The problem is, carmine is made from ground-up insects. Carmine also happens to be an allergen.

And so it goes.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Here’s one of the most concise pieces I’ve seen detailing the genocide in Darfur:

It seems to me that not enough attention is being paid to the racial component of the killings. This 60 Minutes piece describes the African Arab militias known as the Janjaweed as “racist,” which is an apt term but one I’ve rarely heard, even though it might translate the genocide there into terms that Westerners can better understand. The social categories in Sudan are complicated, as they are everywhere, but that said the genocide there is not unlike the lynchings and other kinds of Jim Crow-era violence that whites used to intimidate, terrorize, and drive off African Americans.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Everyone (even the president) talks about America’s "addiction to oil," and this recent debate over offshore drilling has made me think that the addiction analogy is a useful way to think through the issues.

Republicans want to drill offshore and in other new areas (such as Alaska) because they think it’s a quick and easy way to reduce gas prices. I’m somewhat sympathetic to this view: More supply will lower prices, and it is clear that many Americans are hurting terribly because of the higher costs of not only gas but all the goods and services that come from the burning of fossil fuels in our economy — basically, everything else. Yes, the higher price of gas is reducing consumption, just like a gas tax (remember the discussion of that in 2004?), which means less carbon emissions and less global warming, but the pacing is the problem: Everything is happening way too suddenly. The sharp rise in prices has blindsided Americans, especially those of fewer means, and these are households that are teetering on the edge to begin with, and can’t absorb the one-two punch of higher gas and food costs.

Democrats argue that drilling offshore will cause serious, irreparable harm to the environment, and may not even help lower gas prices that much, if at all, given what a small amount of oil can feasibly be pumped from the bottom of the sea, relative to Middle Eastern sources. All offshore drilling leads to oil waste being pumped into the sea, not to mention a risk of disastrous oil spills during transport, and so the damage that this kind of drilling can cause to oceans and seashores (and, more pragmatically, to the tourism industry) is very real.

But the most persuasive argument to me is that more drilling simply delays the solution to the problem. The solution is clear to everyone, I think: We need to develop non-polluting, renewable sources of energy. By drilling, we divert limited economic and political resources toward propping up an industry that eventually must be phased out. Every investment dollar that goes into the oil industry is a dollar not going to green energy.

It’s like a drug addict, who knows she has to quit, but keeps finding new reasons to shoot up. The solution is to stop using. The effects of using are clearly bad, and every time she gives into temptation, she makes the situation worse, and the addiction harder to break. Likewise, by continuing to give into our oil addiction, we’re making global warming and our Middle Eastern dependency worse, and moving further away from our goal of abstinence.

It’s a bit ironic that the Democrats are the ones who advocate quitting cold turkey this time, while the Republicans want "just one more taste."

If we really do need just "one more taste" to tide over our struggling families, then we might as well use the oil sources that have already been tapped — diverting some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and recycling existing oilfields. It’s sort of like using the drugs stashed under your mattress rather than heading into the city to re-up. (Not that I have any experience in these things.) It’s still bad behavior, but at least you don’t have to go too far.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Medical research owes much to the mouse, that wee rodent that is more guinea pig than guinea pig, standing in selflessly (if unwillingly) on behalf of human beings in countless lab experiments that palpitate, penetrate, irradiate, and incinerate it in the name of science. Apparently, the mouse is an excellent surrogate for us humans across a wide variety of physiological measures.

All this said, this study, which examines the effect of ending alcohol consumption in mice, made me laugh. The study authors argue that their research shows a "causal link between abstinence from alcohol drinking and depression." I'm sure a good deal of the theoretical complexity behind this research got lost in the write-up, but I found it hilarious that we can infer this "causal link" in human beings by seeing whether mice who stop drinking can swim in a beaker of water. (It's called the Porsolt Swim Test.) Those mice who just float without swimming are deemed depressed. No word on whether they subsequently get therapy or AA.

I also love the name of the center responsible for this study, the "Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies." It sounds like a fun place to work: beer pong every Friday?

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

I was disturbed by this report that a former Baptist, now atheist, soldier is alleging discrimination in the Army because of his beliefs. He served two tours of duty in Iraq, but he claims he was ostracized and even threatened after he refused to pray with other soldiers.

After decades of virulent racial segregation, the U.S. military has won an admirable reputation for creating esprit de corps across ethnic and racial lines, and has made recent strides in extending equality to women servicemembers (its intolerance of gays and lesbians in uniform, of course, is a different matter). In any case, you'd think the military would know better not to discriminate based on religion, if only to avoid the public perception, particularly in the Middle East, that America is a Christian nation waging a war against Islam. It doesn't help that a group like the Officers' Christian Fellowship, which has representatives "on nearly all military bases worldwide," has made it their mission to "raise up a godly military," whatever that means.

When I was watching that series Carrier, I found the segment on religion particularly interesting, because evangelical Christians clearly dominated (well, there was a Wiccan group) and I got the sense that sometimes officers led prayers that everyone was expected to follow. It made me wonder how atheist soldiers got along with the rest of the crew. (Of course, the discrimination that believers face in many secular settings is worrisome, too. But hopefully there are fewer guns and bombs involved.)

Religiously inclined soldiers can take solace in their faith after going through the hell of armed combat, and surely that's why there are so many chaplains in the ranks of the military. Yet, if I were a man of the cloth (for the sake of argument), I wonder what would be going through my head as I blessed soldiers going off to kill the enemy. That "Thou shalt not kill" business in the Bible seems rather clear. When asking for God's help, it's probably best not to ask for things He doesn't much care for, like killing. And you know the other side is praying hard, too; asking God to take sides in a fight is like asking a parent to choose between her kids.

It reminds me of what Lincoln said during the Civil War when he was asked by a group of leaders to join them in prayer that God be on the Union's side. He answered, "Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Today’s primaries drew a final tide of delegates to Barack Obama’s camp that, according to the Associated Press, has put him over the top. Obama will be the first person of color in American history to be a major party’s presidential nominee. (InTheFray’s Bob Keeler called it.) As far as I’m aware, he’s also the first person of color to be chosen as a major party’s nominee for the chief executive of any Western government.

So, what next? Obama has to choose his running mate, and there’s great pressure coming from the Clinton camp — reportedly from Bill Clinton himself — to put Hillary Clinton on the ticket.

There’s a chance that might happen. When his campaign began in Springfield, Illinois, in February of last year, Obama consciously put on the mantle of Abraham Lincoln. From the Old State Capitol building where Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech, Obama evoked that past in his 21st-century call to bring the nation together and end political partisanship. Again, in his victory speech today in St. Paul, Minnesota, Obama quoted Lincoln twice, referencing the Gettysburg Address and calling for America to restore its image as the "last best hope on Earth." Now that he has secured the nomination, Obama may continue to walk in Lincoln’s steps by choosing a cabinet — and a vice president — from among his political opponents.

As Doris Kearns Goodwin writes, Lincoln passed over the traditional crowd of yes-men in favor of powerful rivals like Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton (a man who once called Lincoln a "long-armed gorilla") in forming his cabinet. It was an audacious move that not only succeeded in quelling factionalism in the party, but also proved Lincoln’s mettle as the kind of confident leader who could lie down with lions and, in the end, win them over with his magnanimity and the strength of his convictions. (Stanton, in fact, grew to admire Lincoln and is credited with saying upon his death the famous lines, "There lies the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen … Now he belongs to the ages.") In spite of all the bad blood spilled on the campaign trail, perhaps Obama will likewise rise to the occasion and make peace with his fiercest opponent, Clinton.

My sense, though, is that it’s not likely to happen. Politics today operate on a different order of magnitude than they did in Lincoln’s time, and the huge, clanking campaign machine that turns politicians into presidents today has an inertia of its own. Lincoln, the obscure legislator from the Illinois backwoods, faced a different kind of pressure than Obama, the man at the center of a fundraising and pundit juggernaut. Obama may be willing to consider Clinton, but his coterie of advisers and legions of supporters are probably less forgiving. The race for the nomination has bruised too many egos, and ego is the currency of the political class surrounding every candidate. Beyond that, there’s also the sense that Clinton represents an old guard that stands in the way of Obama’s call for change.

I think Obama will move in one of two directions for his vice-presidential pick. He will choose someone with a military background who will give his ticket a command-in-chief gravitas that can compete with John McCain’s experience and win over older voters skeptical of his candidacy. (Someone along the lines of Wesley Clark comes to mind.)

The other likely course of action would be to choose a woman as a running mate. Clinton struck a vital chord in American politics with her candidacy, and the millions of voters inspired by the prospect of a woman as president offer the key to victory in November. It’s high time that a woman was in the White House, and though the vice presidency is the equivalent of a silver medal, it still means ascending the winner’s dais. If Clinton is not Obama’s pick, then he can at least defuse much of the resentment — and up the historical ante — by choosing another woman. A unbeatable ticket would be a combination of Obama and a moderate Republican senator like Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, though that kind of bipartisanship would have been tough for even Lincoln (Snowe and Collins, for the record, support McCain), not to mention a slap to the face of Clinton’s supporters. But a running mate from the ranks of Democratic women governors or senators could also serve Obama well in the general election, especially if she comes from a swing state such as Michigan, Minnesota, or Missouri.

Of course, there’s still a chance that Obama will unite the Democratic house by choosing Clinton. If so, he will be following the lead of another tall, skinny legislator from Illinois.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen